The World Transformed

Ataccama: Reopening The Covid-19 World Jun 11, 2020

In this podcast, Michal Klaus, CEO at Ataccama, discusses what is required by governments around the world to successfully reopen their economies after the devastating impacts of Covid-19. The interview is conducted by Ron Powell, independent analyst and industry expert for the BeyeNetwork and executive producer for The World Transformed Fast Forward Series.

Data Is Money Oct 30, 2019

In this edition of Fast Forward, Simon Bain, Founder and Chief Technology Officer of ShieldIO and David Hicks (Vice President, Worldwide ISV Cloud Business Development and Marketing) with Oracle join us to discuss one of the biggest challenges software developers face in this era of heightened data security and strict regulatory requirements. More than ever, application developers and testers need access to live data (not masked and fake data) to ensure that their solutions are effective and error-free. But that data has never been better protected or harder to access. What if there was a way to test and develop new applications securely, in the cloud, with full access to data without ever having to decrypt it? Learn more here: https://cloudmarketplace.oracle.com/marketplace/en_US/listing/61995171 About Our Guests: Simon Bain, Founder and Chief Technology Officer of ShieldIO. He is known for developing award-winning security and search applications, including an innovative parallel processing search engine. Simon has worked with leading banks to implement on-line banking platforms and payment processing systems, and he created the first online voting application to be granted security clearance for use on interactive digital TV in the UK. He is also a published author on security and E-Voting and Holds 6 security patents David Hicks is Vice President, ISV Cloud Business Development and Marketing for Oracle. In this capacity he is responsible for driving Oracle Public Cloud adoption with Oracle broad partner community. David also leads marketing focused on awareness, demand generation and go to market activities with partners. David joined Oracle in 2006 and has been in this role for the past six years. FF 013-824

It All Starts with Data Oct 23, 2019

Smart Cities, Part 2 Bill Pugh joins host Phil Bowermaster for an in-depth discussion of how smart cities are conceptualized and how smart city initiatives are rolled out. Bill explains how Smart Cities initiatives began with cities recognizing that they had unused or underused data assets and began looking for ways to use that data to address real-world problems. He also explains why it’s important to start addressing these kinds of issues regionally versus city by city. Other topics include: How do cities decide to place infrastructure in the Cloud vs on the edge? How can they best incorporate the smart grid into the overall smart city architecture? What are the challenges what are the challenges cities face when it comes to making real improvements regarding traffic and congestion? Join us. About Our Guest: With a background in telecommunications and IT, Bill Pugh is a Managing Partner Smart Connections Consulting, where he provides public and private sector clients technological thought leadership, guidance, and practical support for wired and wireless connected initiatives as well as roadmaps for open data and analytic objectives. Bill has over 25 years of experience in wired/wireless strategy of platform development and deployment of networking technologies for private and public companies. In recent years he has been engaged with cities on strategies for executing Smart City initiatives around Street lights, Smart Parking, Intelligent Traffic and Security. SC 002-823 Eternity Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) | Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0

Terraforming Mars Oct 17, 2019

What if the planet Mars were to be made more Earth-like: the kind of place where human beings and other Earth life forms could live comfortably. Could we do it? Should we? Phil and Stephen discuss. NextBigFuture says we can and tells how to do it: Terraforming Mars in 50 Years with Large Orbital Mirrors, Bacteria and Factories https://bit.ly/2U58VSA George Dvorsky at Gizmodo says we'll never settle Mars: Humans Will Never Colonize Mars https://bit.ly/2BhENec Meanwhile, one guy is talking about nuking the joint: Looks Like Elon Musk Is Serious About Nuking Mars https://bit.ly/32ozEg0 Lots to discuss here. If we can do it, is it the right thing to do? What if there is already life there? What if instead of changing Mars, we changed humans? And most importantly -- is there a board game available that lets you try your hand at Terraforming the red planet? Join us. WT 495-822 Eternity Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) | Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0

A Better Citizen Experience Sep 07, 2019

Smart Cities, Part 1 In this edition of Fast Forward, Frannie Mattews, CEO of the Colorado Technology Association, joins us to discuss the many ways that Smart City technologies are transforming transportation, the workplace, and the communities in which we live. This show is Part 1 in our new ongoing series on Smart Cities. How will smart cities impact the economy and quality of life of the communities where they are deployed? And what is the human impact of these technologies? Kicking off the discussion with us is Frannie Matthews, CEO of Colorado Technology Association (CTA). What is a Smart City? The answers vary, from the highly abstract and theoretical to the completely practical. Most definitions include the idea of making use of data to improve government services, quality of life, and basic infrastructure. Smart City deployments are heavily dependent on the Internet of Things (IOT) and a new class of smart devices. Such technologies can make cities cleaner, safer, more energy efficient, and less congested. But there are trade-offs . What new risks do we incur by giving our data over to Smart Cities applications? Our we making it easier for Big Brother to watch us? How do we balance the benefits and risks? SC 001-821 Music: www.bensound.com Videos and Images from Pixabay.com and other sources. City photo by alejandro gonzalez on Unsplash

Replicator Aug 29, 2019

What would you make if you had a machine that could make anything? One day soon we may have machines that can do exactly that. The most famous example of the Universal Assembler is probably the Replicator from Star Trek. What do you need -- Equipment? Clothes? A Cup of Tea? Recent developments suggest such a device may be closer than many of us expect. A Real World 'Star Trek' Replicator Is Now Possible Thanks To New Breakthrough https://bit.ly/2Ua7WAx A startup with alumni from MIT and Yale says it's made a breakthrough in creating a next-generation material that should make it possible to 3-d print literally anything out of thin air. New York-based Mattershift has managed to create large-scale carbon nanotube (CNT) membranes that are able to combine and separate individual molecules. "This technology gives us a level of control over the material world that we've never had before," said Mattershift Founder and CEO Dr. Rob McGinnis in a release. "For example, right now we're working to remove CO2 from the air and turn it into fuels. This has already been done using conventional technology, but it's been too expensive to be practical. Using our tech, I think we'll be able to produce carbon-zero gasoline, diesel, and jet fuels that are cheaper than fossil fuels." RELATED Chemists make first-ever ring of pure carbon https://go.nature.com/2Ha48da WT 494-820 Eternity Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) | Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0

Strange New Worlds and Return of the Foo Fighters Aug 24, 2019

With a habitable super-Earth and UFOs back in the news, we have to ask: Are we going to find the aliens or have they already come to see us? Could There Be Life? This Newfound 'Super-Earth' May Be Habitable https://bit.ly/2YN5fK5 Only 31 light years away! Pretty close for an earth-like planet. But then there’s this… The Hunt Is On for Alpha Centauri’s Planets https://bit.ly/2Ytlz3h Snake-like UFOs seen across US ‘could be military craft used by Space Force’ https://bit.ly/2YvHGVG A trio of ASU experts give their thoughts on recent UFO reports https://bit.ly/2ItJhT9 'Fleet of UFOs' Followed US Aircraft, Navy Pilot Says https://bit.ly/2yOxARp -- Between 2014 and 2015, seasoned pilots in the U.S. Navy experienced a number of harrowing encounters with UFOs during training missions in the U.S. While pilots were mid-flight, their aircraft cameras and radar detected seemingly impossible objects flying at hypersonic speeds at altitudes up to 30,00 feet (9,144 meters); these mysterious UFOs did so with no visible means of propulsion, The New York Times reported on May 26. This stuff has been going on for a long time. Takes us back to the days of the Foo Fighters. What Were the Mysterious “Foo Fighters” Sighted by WWII Night Flyers? https://bit.ly/2OO9WiG --Something strange was following the Beaufighter crews of the 415th Night Fighter Squadron. Dozens of these sightings occurred -- hundreds of similar throughout both theaters of war. What were they? Popular theory at the time: Secret Nazi Weapons! WT 493-819 Eternity Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) | Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0

Magic Tech Aug 21, 2019

NASA's idea for making food from thin air just became a reality — it could feed billions https://bit.ly/2Zdu1zL It's not like you can make food out of thin air. Well…it turns out you can. A company from Finland, Solar Foods, is planning to bring to market a new protein powder, Solein, made out of CO2, water and electricity. It's a high-protein, flour-like ingredient that contains 50 percent protein content, 5–10 percent fat, and 20–25 percent carbs. It reportedly looks and tastes like wheat flour, and could become an ingredient in a wide variety of food products after its initial launch in 2021. Related: Edible Insects - Can it be Sushi-fied? https://bit.ly/2ykQuzn A New Law to Describe Quantum Computing’s Rise? https://bit.ly/2KmxEQ4 Neven’s law states that quantum computers are improving at a “doubly exponential” rate. If it holds, quantum supremacy is around the corner. Cell Reprogramming Leads to Reversal in Cell Aging! https://bit.ly/3108TxE You might have heard of scientists turning adult cells (like skin cells) into undifferentiated pluripotent stem cells. However, the team at Stanford lead by Vittorio Sebastiano, Jay Sarkar, and Marco Quarta has found a way to turn adult cells into younger cells. That way, the cells don’t forget their assigned tasks since they maintain their cell type, but have the added advantage of having restored youthful performance. WT 492-818 Eternity Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) | Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 Category People & Blogs

Asking the Wrong Question Aug 16, 2019

Daniel Mintz, Chief Data Evangelist at Looker, steps us through some common misconceptions about who uses data for business, how they are using it, and what the future of business intelligence looks like. Today's businesses face unprecedented challenges when it comes to the size and complexity of their data sets. New technologies allow more widespread and sophisticated access to data assets than ever before. With such capabilities at our fingertips, it is easy to assume that the future of business intelligence will be a bigger, more complex version of what has come before. But will it? About Our Guest Daniel Mintz is the Chief Data Evangelist at Looker. Previously, he was Head of Data & Analytics at fast-growing media startup Upworthy and before that, he was Director of Analytics at political powerhouse MoveOn.org. Throughout his career, Daniel has focused on how people interact with data in their everyday lives and how they can use it to get better at what they do. Music: www.bensound.com Videos and Images from Pixabay.com and other sources. Image by Gerd Altmann FF 012-817

Return to the Moon Aug 03, 2019

Phil and Stephen review the legacy of the first moon landing. We’re now as far in time from the moon landing as that event was from the end of World War I. What does it mean to live in a world where the moon landing is (practically) ancient history? Why is the moon landing still important? Writing for the L.A. Times, Ayn Rand had the following to say about Apollo 11: That we had seen a demonstration of man at his best, no one could doubt — this was the cause of the event’s attraction and of the stunned, numbed state in which it left us. And no one could doubt that we had seen an achievement of man in his capacity as a rational being — an achievement of reason, of logic, of mathematics, of total dedication to the absolutism of reality. How many people would connect these two facts, I do not know. https://bit.ly/2K3z2of Did landing on the moon bring us into another reality? Which leads us to this headline: Elon Musk says SpaceX could land on the moon in 2 years. A NASA executive says 'we'll partner with them, and we'll get there faster' if the company can pull it off. https://bit.ly/2Gvs22B The SLS isn’t even scheduled to fly until 2021. Musk says he could have us on the moon in that period of time. Even if he’s blowing smoke, who would bet that NASA on its own could get there faster? WT 491-816 Eternity Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) | Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License | http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0

Data in Context Jul 24, 2019

In this edition of Fast Forward on the World Transformed, Jake Freivald, Vice President of Product Marketing at Information Builders, talks with us about how rethinking data integration can open up new possibilities for data analysis. As the buzz surrounding big data recedes, organizations find that they still face significant challenges when it comes to deriving business value from their data. More than ever, businesses need a clear understanding that comes from exploring the deep relationships that exist in their full datasets. But organizations continue to struggle to achieve that, and many are left wondering what lies beyond the big data hype. It’s now been four years since Gartner removed Big Data from their annual Hype Cycle. With the advantage of hindsight, Jake describes how Hadoop in particular and big data in general may have failed to live up to the hype. At the same time, he points out there is a lot to be said for what organizations have done right when it comes to putting big data solutions in place. Jake identifies three core questions: How can we stop wasting so much time mapping one set of rows and columns to another? How do we address the disconnect between business people and technicians? How much value do we lose by constantly shifting context in these complicated projects? In the post Big Data World, businesses are still dealing with many of the same fundamental data challenges they always have. But today, new technologies are opening up a modern approach to data integration and master data management. Tremendous opportunities lie ahead.

Fast Forward: Robots that Teach Feb 14, 2019

In this edition of Fast Forward our guest Mitch Rosenberg talks with Phil Bowermaster and Ron Powell about how robots that teach can revolutionize the way kids learn. In an increasingly data-driven world, do we need new approaches to encourage technical literacy at a young age? What about the need for kids to interact with real objects in the real world? And to develop both their creative and quantitative skills? The founding of KinderLab and the origin of KIBO Coding with wooden blocks? How KIBO gets kids interested in STEM Mitch Rosenberg is the CEO of Kinderlabs robotics (kinderlabsrobotics.com). He brings more than 30 years of experience in the technology industry in engineering, marketing, product management, and sales. He has executive experience at several successful technology firms, including robotics firms such as Automatix Inc., Kiva Systems (sold to Amazon in 2012), and Rethink Robotics. Mitch received his BSEE and MSeE degrees from MIT and his MBA from Boston University. Music: www.bensound.com Videos and Images from Pixabay.com and other sources. FF 010-814

Parallel Universes, Mandela Effect, Reincarnation Jan 30, 2019

Parallel Universes, Mandela Effect, Reincarnation Digital Consciousness with Jim Elvidge, Part 3 Here's Part 1: https://youtu.be/OpwX_YbmZHg Here's Part 2: https://youtu.be/PkwVAzTMnYo We continue our three-part discussion with Jim Elvidge of his new book, Digital Consciousness https://amzn.to/2AXGD3M. In Part 3, Jim explains how digital consciousness theory explains anomalies and paradoxes better than other models. Topics include: Do we have a soul? Do we experience lives in other worlds or earlier times? What happens to consciousness in the long term? Are there parallel universes? Can we access them? What causes the Mandela Effect? Is humanity evolving into something new? Join us! About our guest: Jim Elvidge https://www.theuniversesolved.com has applied his training in the high-tech world as a leader in technology and enterprise management, including many years in executive roles for various companies, entrepreneurial ventures, and leadership consulting. Jim also has years of experience as a science researcher, keeping pace with the latest developments in such fields as quantum physics, cosmology, artificial intelligence, nanotechnology, and metaphysical anomalies. This knowledge base provided the foundation for 2008 book, “The Universe-Solved!,” which presented evidence that our reality may be under programmed control. His research and theory has continued beyond the simulation hypothesis and incorporated powerful ideas around consciousness, cultural synchronicities, quantum anomalies, and a true scientific foundation for digital consciousness theory. WT 490-813 Eternity Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) | Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License | http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0

Digital Reality: God, the Universe, and Everything Jan 25, 2019

We continue our three-part discussion with Jim Elvidge of his new book, Digital Consciousness https://amzn.to/2AXGD3M. In Part 2, Jim explains how digital consciousness theory maps to traditional spiritual concepts. Which philosophical approach makes more sense -- idealism or materialism? What is the appeal of materialism? How did everything start? What is the fundamental nature of reality? What happens to us when we die? What does "immortality" mean? What new light does digital consciousness theory shed on these ideas: Consciousness is immortal We have free will We are connected Our lives have purpose We are here to learn We can shape our reality Material things have no lasting value Join us! About our guest: Jim Elvidge has applied his training in the high-tech world as a leader in technology and enterprise management, including many years in executive roles for various companies, entrepreneurial ventures, and leadership consulting. Jim also has years of experience as a science researcher, keeping pace with the latest developments in such fields as quantum physics, cosmology, artificial intelligence, nanotechnology, and metaphysical anomalies. This knowledge base provided the foundation for 2008 book, “The Universe-Solved!,” which presented evidence that our reality may be under programmed control. His research and theory has continued beyond the simulation hypothesis and incorporated powerful ideas around consciousness, cultural synchronicities, quantum anomalies, and a true scientific foundation for digital consciousness theory. WT 489-812 Eternity Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) | Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License | http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0

Proof We're Living in a Simulation Jan 23, 2019

Why We're Living in a Simulation Digital Consciousness with Jim Elvidge, Part 1 Jim Elvidge joins us for a three-part discussion of his new book, Digital Consciousness https://amzn.to/2AXGD3M. In Part 1, Jim outlines the scientific evidence that the universe is digital. Sound crazy? There is a lot more evidence than you might suspect! Topics discussed include: Is the universe continuous or discrete? Why simulation arguments are consistent with technological evolution. Why simulation best explains the fine-tuning of the universe. How science is coming to the conclusion that matter is composed mostly of information. How math equations may actually be driving reality. How a digital model of reality solves a number of mysteries: Who or what is the prime mover? What accounts for the randomness of physical processes? How to best explain quantum probability functions? Why is the speed of light what it is? Join us! WT 488-811 Eternity Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) | Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License | http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 Videos and Images from Pixabay.com and other sources.

Predictions 2019 Jan 11, 2019

Time to pick some favorites from the many lists of predictions for 2019 now circulating. Phil narrows it down to two lists with a few predictions from each State of technology in 2019 | Future Forecast https://bit.ly/2R16hhw (Hint: not all of these will happen!) - World’s largest solar park to finish construction - World’s largest offshore wind farm starts completed - NASA implements the Unmanned Aerial System Traffic Management system - James Webb Space Telescope launched - Cost of solar panels, per watt, down to $1.40 - World sales of electric vehicles reaches 5,900,000 1 - Internet traffic goes through the roof Recession, Blockchain, Drones and Other Tech Predictions for 2019 https://bit.ly/2RoMiK0 2. Blockchain finds a killer (app), and the commercial rush begins 3. 2019 will be the year that commercial drone integration really takes flight 10. Virtual assistants will be common in both B2C and B2B environments 15. Virtual reality applications will grow Stephen focuses exclusively on space stuff and makes the following predictions for 2019. - Dragon 2 unmanned test flight - FH block 5 first launch - Dragon 2 launch abord test - Dragon 2 first manned mission - Starliner unmanned test flight - Starliner first manned mission - Starship prototype hopper tests - Chang'e lunar landing - SLS static fire tests Plus he notes two big space developments for 2019 that have already happened. WT 487-810 Eternity Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) | Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License | http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 Videos and Images from Pixabay.com and other sources.

2018 Year in Review Jan 05, 2019

Phil and Stephen explain that so much good stuff happened in 2018 that it's impossible to recap. You have to just push on and report addtional good news that you missed the first time! The 99 best things that happened in 2018 https://bit.ly/2s4Tr3K 271 million people in India moved out of poverty since 2015 Bangladesh reduced its child mortality rate by 78% Respiratory disease death rates in China have fallen by 70% since 1990 Best moments in space 2018. Hat-tip to Everyday Astronaut https://bit.ly/2n0BelV Voyager 2 Soyuz Abort Virgin Galactic VSS Unity Osiris-Rex TESS Hayabusa2/Ryugu ISRO Preps for Human Space Flight (GLSV-MKIII D2 and Gaganyaan) Rocket Lab Parker Solar Probe Block 5 debut and thrice flight Insight Falcon Heavy Favorite shows of 2018 Outrageous Optimism https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R91LqaxqfpI&t=483s Yanny, Laurel, and the Mandela Effect https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w1O3NBrQuf8 Who Wants to Live Forever? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HXZkabzs7YA&t=6s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qM3kfifclyo&t=53s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3t6EQWXELrs&t=24s WT 486-809 Eternity Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) | Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License | http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 Videos and Images from Pixabay.com and other sources.

Fast Forward How Customers Buy Dec 06, 2018

In this edition of FastForward, Martyn Lewis talks with us about one of the biggest challenges that businesses face today: understanding the buying behavior of their customers. In an online, always-on, personalized digital marketplace, why are businesses struggling more than ever to understand what drives their customers’ purchasing decisions? Is it possible that we have been looking at this thing all wrong? We discuss: - The five ways customers are buying differently today. - The impact that the internet has had on the customer experience, and how this will continue to evolve in the coming years. -The biggest mistake most businesses are making today when it comes to understanding what drives their customers’ buying decisions. - Managing the end-to-end customer buying journey. About Our Guest: Martyn R. Lewis is an acclaimed business professional with a vast background in all aspects of revenue generation. He consults globally and his work been used across 44 countries, in 17 languages, and has impacted over 85,000 sales professionals. Martyn is an advisor to a number of executives in the high tech industry and is active on several advisory boards and Boards of Directors, and has served as the Committee Chair for the Sales Enablement Community of Practice Advisory Board for the American Society for Training and Development, ASTD. He has a new book out, drawing on years of working with consulting clients and their customers, with the title How Customers Buy and Why They Don’t. Available on Amazon -- makes a great gift! Music: www.bensound.com Videos and Images from Pixabay.com and other sources. FF 008-806

Enriching Humanity in a Digitized World Nov 13, 2018

A Very Human Future, Part 2 Futurist Steve Wells concludes his conversation with Phil and Stephen about his new book, A Very Human Future. Steve is a global futurist, keynote speaker, and COO of Fast Future, which is a professional foresight firm. He helps clients and event delegates understand the key future factors driving innovation, growth and disruptive change, highlighting the new thinking and business models being enabled by exponential technologies such as AI, immersive technologies like augmented and virtual reality, and hyperconnectivity. He explores the mindset shifts and leadership capabilities required to compete in the emerging future in order to help leaders to make informed choices on the potential impact of emerging technologies. He is a co-editor and a contributing author for The Future of Business, Beyond Genuine Stupidity – Ensuring AI Serves Humanity, The Future Reinvented – Reimagining Life, Society, and Business, and the recently published book A Very Human Future – Enriching Humanity in a Digitized World. A VERY HUMAN FUTURE As society enters the fourth industrial revolution, a major question arises—can we harness intense technological bursts of possibility to bring about a better world? A Very Human Future illustrates how the evolution of society, cities, people, businesses, industries, nations, and governments are being unexpectedly entangled by exponential technological disruption. Here's Part 1 https://youtu.be/R91LqaxqfpI Here's Part 2 https://youtu.be/ssZI0aTN3VA WT 483-803 Eternity Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) | Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License | http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 Videos and Images from Pixabay.com and other sources.

People, Jobs, Capability Nov 10, 2018

A Very Human Future, Part 2 Futurist Steve Wells continues his conversation with Phil and Stephen about his new book, A Very Human Future. Steve is a global futurist, keynote speaker, and COO of Fast Future, which is a professional foresight firm. He helps clients and event delegates understand the key future factors driving innovation, growth and disruptive change, highlighting the new thinking and business models being enabled by exponential technologies such as AI, immersive technologies like augmented and virtual reality, and hyperconnectivity. He explores the mindset shifts and leadership capabilities required to compete in the emerging future in order to help leaders to make informed choices on the potential impact of emerging technologies. He is a co-editor and a contributing author for The Future of Business, Beyond Genuine Stupidity – Ensuring AI Serves Humanity, The Future Reinvented – Reimagining Life, Society, and Business, and the recently published book A Very Human Future – Enriching Humanity in a Digitized World. WT 482-802 Eternity Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) | Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License | http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 Videos and Images from Pixabay.com and other sources.

Bursts of Possibility Nov 08, 2018

A Very Human Future, Part 1 Futurist Steve Wells joins Phil and Stephen to discuss his new book, A Very Human Future. Steve is a global futurist, keynote speaker, and COO of Fast Future, which is a professional foresight firm. He helps clients and event delegates understand the key future factors driving innovation, growth and disruptive change, highlighting the new thinking and business models being enabled by exponential technologies such as AI, immersive technologies like augmented and virtual reality, and hyperconnectivity. He explores the mindset shifts and leadership capabilities required to compete in the emerging future in order to help leaders to make informed choices on the potential impact of emerging technologies. A VERY HUMAN FUTURE As society enters the fourth industrial revolution, a major question arises—can we harness intense technological bursts of possibility to bring about a better world? A Very Human Future illustrates how the evolution of society, cities, people, businesses, industries, nations, and governments are being unexpectedly entangled by exponential technological disruption. This is not a book about technology but an exploration of how we make it serve humanity’s highest needs and ambitions. Each chapter looks at how new ideas enabled by emerging technologies are straining the old social fabric, and proposes radical future scenarios, strategies, and actions to safeguard humanity from harm and enhance opportunity for all. This book is a manifesto for a future that is better than the past. WT 481-801 Eternity Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) | Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License | http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 Videos and Images from Pixabay.com and other sources.

Outrageous Optimism Nov 07, 2018

Phil and Stephen celebrate their 800th (!) podcast by making the case for Outrageous Optimism. Now more than ever, we need to be pushing the limits of the possible. Reduction in Poverty Will we one day all be rich, or is that just an outrageously optimistic fantasy? Expansion of Lifespan Will we soon live much longer (and be disease-free) or is that just an outrageously optimistic fantasy? Is there anything we can do about diseases as a category? Priscilla Chan and Mark Zuckerberg aim to 'cure, prevent and manage' all disease Metformin for Protection Against Alzheimer's, Cancer and Heart Disease? One bold idea -- one outrageously optimistic idea -- may do more to end suffering from disease than anything that’s come before. From the moon landing to the autonomous car -- the outrageous optimists have been right! Maybe now it's time for all of us to begin embracing their approach to the world. Eternity Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) | Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License | http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 Videos and Images from Pixabay.com and other sources. WT 480-800

Elon-Scapades Part 1 Oct 13, 2018

What is up with Elon Musk? In this show, recorded right before Musk was fired as Chairman of Tesla, Phil and Stephen work through the timeline of events leading up to his dismissal. Has Musk lost it? Why is there good reason to hope he can keep it together? Elon Musk Is Sending a Japanese Billionaire to the Moon, and He’s Taking a Group of Artists With Him It's Already Too Late, including select quotes from the Joe Rogan interview. Full Joe Rogan Show Join us. WT 477-797 Eternity Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) | Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License | http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 Videos and Images from Pixabay.com and other sources.

Go Where the Land Is Sep 26, 2018

The world population is moving into cities. Will we all fit? Phil and Stephen discuss what to do when the land runs out In Hong Kong, Humankind Moves Back Into Caves Hong Kong has the most skyscrapers in the world. But going high hasn’t addressed the chronic housing shortage in the city of 7.4 million, which also boasts the world’s priciest housing market. Surrounded almost entirely by the South China Sea, Hong Kong is running out of land. The government has proposed an unusual solution: Create new real estate with help from explosives. Alternative (probably won’t work for Hong Kong) Watch How Singapore Builds an Island Made from Trash Other alternative: (definitely won’t work for Hong Kong.) Go where the land is!!! WT 477-795 Eternity Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) | Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License | http://creativecommons.org/licenses/b... Videos and Images from Pixabay.com and other sources.

Waiving the Flag Sep 08, 2018

Waiving the Flag New Film About Neil Armstrong Omits American Flag From Moon Landing Hollywood star Ryan Gosling, who portrays Armstrong in the movie, told The Telegraph the flag was omitted from the moon landing because the achievement of humans walking on the moon "transcended countries and borders." “First Man” omits flag - rather than boycott, Stephen is going to Rocky-Horror-Picture-Show it. “I hear the film’s otherwise great, so I’m carrying my own flag I’ll wave at the appropriate moment.” Does it matter whether they show the flag planting? Would they make a film about Yuri Gagarin and omit to mention the nationalistic importance of his mission? Gagarin’s accomplishment belongs not to the Soviet Union but to all humanity. Same is true of Armstrong’s. The planners of the Apollo mission knew this and the plaque reads “We came in peace for all mankind.” Still, it’s seems a likely reason for leaving the flag out of the Armstrong movie is to appeal to audiences who don’t care for the U. S. Critical question: Would Neil Armstrong go see this movie? Phil has the answer. WT 476-794 Eternity Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) | Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License | http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 Videos and Images from Pixabay.com and other sources.

The Man Who Saved the World Sep 06, 2018

Phil and Stephen discuss the signficicance of one man's action (or rather inaction) 35 years ago. Did Stanislav Petrov save the world? Stanislav Petrov, 'The Man Who Saved The World,' Dies At 77 https://n.pr/2MJ0JXM Stanislav Petrov was a lieutenant colonel in the Soviet Union's Air Defense Forces, and his job was to monitor his country's satellite system, which was looking for any possible nuclear weapons launches by the United States. He was on the overnight shift in the early morning hours of Sept. 26, 1983, when the computers sounded an alarm, indicating that the U.S. had launched five nuclear-armed intercontinental ballistic missiles. “All I had to do was to reach for the phone; to raise the direct line to our top commanders — but I couldn't move. I felt like I was sitting on a hot frying pan." After several nerve-jangling minutes, Petrov didn't send the computer warning to his superiors. He checked to see if there had been a computer malfunction. He had guessed correctly. "Twenty-three minutes later I realized that nothing had happened…” This may be the closest we ever came to nuclear war. Maybe even closer than the Cuban Missile crisis? Should there be a holiday in honor of Petrov? How many times did this scenario play out -- on both sides through the course of the Cold War? Is this proof that we (humans) are a little smarter than we might suspect when it comes to preserving ourselves at the species level? WT 475-793 Eternity Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) | Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License | http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 Videos and Images from Pixabay.com and other sources.

Ready for a Great Future (Part 2) Sep 01, 2018

Part 2: A World of Abundance Phil and Stephen wrap up their week with special guest John Palmer with a discussion of where the next big positive changes may be coming from. John outlines major coming improvements in: Energy & Transportation Food and Water Medicine & Health Care Artificial Intelligence Philanthropy For more on clean energy disruption, see the Tony Seba talk John mentioned. About Our Guest John Palmer is a coach and speaker who is passionate about alternative energy, efficient government, and, more recently, generous listening. Together with his wife Doreen, he manages a coaching business which serves the emotional visions of expatriates returning home from overseas assignments. John’s driving interest is sharing his passion that humans will continue on the path of creating a fabulous future as long as we keep our focus on creating that future, and not on reporting and regurgitating the seemingly overwhelming problems that we see today. WT 474-792 Eternity Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) | Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License | http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 Videos and Images from Pixabay.com and other sources.

Ready for a Great Future (Part 1) Aug 30, 2018

Part 1 Amazing Improvements What kind of a future are we in for? So-So? Scary? Great? Superfantastic? Phil and Stephen talk with John Palmer about what recent trends tell us about what kind of future we can expect. Is the world’s future bleak? There is a lot of worry about: ClimateTerrorismOverpopulationEconomic CollapseFascism -- the “bad people” are going to win (huge fear of both the left and right) But maybe we’re getting the future wrong. John outlines the biases and the media practices that encourage us to be afraid of the future. But apparently there is another side to the story. Trends around poverty, life expectancy, standards of living, violence and other areas suggest that a very different future may be on its way. About Our Guest John Palmer is a coach and speaker who is passionate about alternative energy, efficient government, and, more recently, generous listening. Together with his wife Doreen, he manages a coaching business which serves the emotional visions of expatriates returning home from overseas assignments. John’s driving interest is sharing his passion that humans will continue on the path of creating a fabulous future as long as we keep our focus on creating that future, and not on reporting and regurgitating the seemingly overwhelming problems that we see today. WT 473-791 Eternity Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) | Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License | http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 Videos and Images from Pixabay.com and other sources.

Global Cooling Aug 28, 2018

Phil and Stephen welcome special guest John Palmer to discuss unexpected solutions to climate change. John reviews some our-of-the-box ideas related to: Energy & transportation Land Use Materials Buildings and Cities Women and Girls For more on these kinds of approaches, see: Drawdown, by Paul Hawken. About Our Guest: John Palmer is a coach and speaker who is passionate about alternative energy, efficient government, and, more recently, generous listening. Together with his wife Doreen, he manages a coaching business which serves the emotional visions of expatriates returning home from overseas assignments. John’s driving interest is sharing his passion that humans will continue on the path of creating a fabulous future as long as we keep our focus on creating that future, and not on reporting and regurgitating the seemingly overwhelming problems that we see today. WT 472-790 Eternity Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) | Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License | http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 Videos and Images from Pixabay.com and other sources.

No, Star Trek Is Not Too Star Treky Aug 25, 2018

Chris Pine and Chris Hemsworth are out. The fourth Star Trek movie in the current franchise appears to be dead in the water. Phil and Stephen take a look at where things have been going wrong for Trek and what might set things right. First off, check out this video, which gives a good low-down with the current situation. Star Trek 4 Loses Pine and Hemsworth - The Rise and Fall of The Kelvin Timeline What we know of Star Trek 4 sounds interesting. The story potentially involves time travel via the Gateway to Eternity and an attempt to set things that went wrong in the first movie right. Interestingly, Paramount canceled a project similar to that when they fired Roberto Orci and threw away his script in order to make Star Trek Beyond. Simon Pegg, who wrote Star Trek Beyond, explained that Orci’s story was too "Star Treky." https://screenrant.com/star-trek-3-beyond-script-orci-simon-pegg/ That such an objection could even be made speak volumes. All these studios seem to think they’re going to do something akin to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. (Hello, Star Wars?) Hint: not going to happen. What they COULD do is a successful version of what they have, but it needs to be true to the material they’re working with. In the long run, Star Trek is certain to live long and prosper. But it’s going to be interesting to see what happens next. Time to let Tarantino give it a go? WT 471-789 Eternity Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) | Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License | http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 Videos and Images from Pixabay.com and other sources.

Does Death Make Us Human? Aug 23, 2018

Phil and Stephen discuss the question -- is death integral to our humanity? They start with a look at a recent opinion piece at The New York Times: Life Is Short. That’s the Point. "Our mortality is not something to be overcome. It is integral to our humanity." Is this correct? Are we defined by our limitations? Maybe. But we are also defined by other things, in part our ongoing struggle to overcome our limitations. Interesting quote: In her new book, “Natural Causes: An Epidemic of Wellness, the Certainty of Dying, and Killing Ourselves to Live Longer,” Barbara Ehrenreich writes: “You can think of death bitterly or with resignation, as a tragic interruption of your life, and take every possible measure to postpone it. Or, more realistically, you can think of life as an interruption of an eternity of personal nonexistence, and seize it as a brief opportunity to observe and interact with the living, ever-surprising world around us.” This is true, but on the other hand -- Death Sucks! WT 470-788 Eternity Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) | Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License | http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 Videos and Images from Pixabay.com and other sources.

Solving the Water Problem Aug 21, 2018

The west is getting drier and Stephen Gordon has an intriguing idea about how to get the water where it is needed. Why couldn't we pipe water from the Missouri River to the Colorado River headwaters? Stephen suggests that a pipeline about the size of this one might do the trick. .Phil and Stephen look at the major objections to this particular plan,and discuss why ideas like this need to be on the table. Another possibility: Should we be turning seawater into fresh water in order to address this problem? Or what about using the fresh water that is already in the ocean? (Oh yes, it’s there.) And what are some of the other big interventions we should be thinking about related climate? Let’s explore.. WT 469-787 Eternity Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) | Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License | http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 Videos and Images from Pixabay.com and other sources.

Mysterious Universe Aug 16, 2018

The more we learn about the universe, the stranger it gets. Phil and Stephen examine some recent headlines showing just how mysterious the universe is. Interstellar Visitor 'Oumuamua Is a Comet After All First it was a comet. Then it was a meteor. Then it was a very starnge meteor. Then it was a possible alien spacecraft. And now it's a comet again. The universe’s rate of expansion is in dispute – and we may need new physics to solve it Different parts of the universe expanding at different rates? Massive rogue planet with unexplained aurora glow discovered drifting far beyond our solar system Apparently there is no fusion reaction going on. So why the glow? The Peculiar Math That Could Underlie the Laws of Nature How many dimensions can we do math in? What if that number is less than the total number of dimensions that exist? WT 467-785 Eternity Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) | Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License | http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 Videos and Images from Pixabay.com and other sources.

Closing in on Cancer Aug 14, 2018

Phil and Stephen review three recent news stories showing the remarkable rapid progress being made in treating (and curing?) cancer. New Australian drug puts cancer cells permanently to 'sleep' Scientists in Melbourne say they have discovered a new type of anti-cancer drug without the usual side effects of conventional cancer treatments. -- HPV vaccine eliminates advanced skin cancer in 97-year-old A 97-year-old female patient had developed multiple cutaneous squamous cell carcinomas. On a hunch, her doctor, Anna Nichols, M.D., of the University of Miami's Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center, tried an unorthodox approach—she injected each tumor with Gardasil, the HPV vaccine. The result: All the tumors completely and rapidly disappeared. -- CAR-T May Be a Silver Bullet Against Cancer—and Here’s What Else It Can Do Without doubt, CAR-T is set to overhaul cancer therapy. Last year several variants of the immunocellular technique earned the FDA’s nod of approval for blood cancers; with big pharma pouring in billions to develop the technology, more are certainly to come. -- WT 466-784 Eternity Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) | Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License | http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 Videos and Images from Pixabay.com and other sources.

Monsters -- Never Tell Me the Odds Aug 11, 2018

Phil spent some time at Loch Ness last week where he and his kids came up with little in the way of evidence in support of the existence of Nessie. In light of those disappointing results, Phil and Stephen discuss some of their all-time favorite monsters. None of these critters can be ruled out, of course, but what are the chances that any of them exist? How probable is the Loch Ness monster? (Quora discussion) Bizarre, Nessie-Like Creature Washes Ashore in Georgia, and Marine Experts Are Mystified Probably a decomposing shark. Why Bigfoot is Unlikely Only If You Know What “Unlikely” Means Science professor explains why Bigfoot's likely not real Fouke Monster (The Boggy Creek Monster) Don’t Have To Be A Rocket Scientist To Know That Bigfoot And Dogman Are Real Interesting use of Schrödinger’s cat to “prove” that Both bigfoot AND Dogman exist. The Truth About a Strange, Blood-Sucking Monster (Chupacabra) They track Chupie down to the very first sighting! Patient 0. Looks like the 1995 movie Species made a BIG impression on Puerto Rico... Mokele Mbembe-- dinosaur living in Africa today? WT 465-783 Eternity Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) | Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License | http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 Videos and Images from Pixabay.com and other sources.

The Future of Everything Aug 11, 2018

So let's get into it here. Aliens? Designer babies? Robo-apocalypse? Phil Bowermaster and Nate Gruendemann discuss. About our guest: Nate Gruendemann is not your typical 22-year-old. He’s young enough to still have high school senior class president and valedictorian on his resume. After two years at Williams College, he and his buddies dropped out to found Board Private Bank. His mission is to level the playing field between mortgage buyers and cash buyers in the country’s most competitive markets. WT 462-780 Eternity Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) | Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License | http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 Videos and Images from Pixabay.com and other sources.

You Can't Make This Stuff Up Aug 09, 2018

Do we now live in the post-satire era? Phil and Stephen discuss whether the Onion can stay in business much longer. How do you write spoof headlines in a world that produces real ones like these? Dozens of professional goats briefly took over a neighborhood in Boise Costco’s free cheese samples spurred a physical fight between two men in their 70s New study finds it’s harder to turn off a robot when it’s begging for its life See recent clip from The Good Place Alex Jones’s Attorneys Argue That No Reasonable Person Would Believe What He Says ‘Bigfoot Erotica’ Becomes an Issue in Virginia Congressional Campaign Pro gamer dumps 'world's sexiest weathergirl' to focus on playing 'Call of Duty' WT 464-782 Eternity Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) | Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License | http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 Videos and Images from Pixabay.com and other sources.

Robots that Beg for their Lives Aug 07, 2018

Phil and Stephen discuss new research that shows how people respond differently to robots based on what the robots say to them. Is this proof that humans are easily manipulated by robots or does it offer hope that, when the time comes, people will treat sentient robots right? New study finds it’s harder to turn off a robot when it’s begging for its life In roughly half of experiments, the robot protested, telling participants it was afraid of the dark and even begging: “No! Please do not switch me off!” When this happened, the human volunteers were likely to refuse to turn the bot off. Of the 43 volunteers who heard Nao’s pleas, 13 refused. And the remaining 30 took, on average, twice as long to comply compared to those who did not not hear the desperate cries at all. (Just imagine that scene from The Good Place for reference.) What are the potential downsides to this finding? People offering empathy where it is not needed. Can robots be used to manipulate people to do things they otherwise wouldn’t do? What potential upsides do we see? When in doubt, empathy is maybe not a bad response. Better to apply it to things that don’t need it than to withhold it from those who do? Also, is this experiment kind of the reverse of the famous Milgram Experiment? https://bit.ly/1MKwZx3 In this case, it looks like the test subjects refused to obey orders that violated their consciences! WT 463-781 Eternity Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) | Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License | http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 Videos and Images from Pixabay.com and other sources.

The Future of Real Estate Aug 02, 2018

Technology is changing every aspect of home purchase and home ownership.What will the suburbs look like when no one owns a car? What will the housing market look like when place no longer matters? Phil Bowermaster and Nate Gruendemann discuss. About our guest: Nate Gruendemann is not your typical 22-year-old. He’s young enough to still have high school senior class president and valedictorian on his resume. After two years at Williams College, he and his buddies dropped out to found Board Private Bank. His mission is to level the playing field between mortgage buyers and cash buyers in the country’s most competitive markets. WT 461-779 Eternity Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) | Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License | http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 Videos and Images from Pixabay.com and other sources.

Home Ownership: Changing the Story Jul 31, 2018

Nate Gruendemann, a founder of Board Private Bank, outlines a plan for leveling the playing field for potential home-buyers. In today's market, cash buyers have a big advantage over those who need to secure financing. But does it have to work that way? Let's explore! About our guest: Nate Gruendemann is not your typical 22-year-old. He’s young enough to still have high school senior class president and valedictorian on his resume. After two years at Williams College, he and his buddies dropped out to found Board Private Bank. His mission is to level the playing field between mortgage buyers and cash buyers in the country’s most competitive markets. WT 460-778 Eternity Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) | Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License | creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 Videos and Images from Pixabay.com and other sources.

All Time Great Summer Movies Jul 27, 2018

What were the greatest summer movies ever made? Or maybe it's better to ask, what was the greatest movie summer of all time? It's a full-on geekout as Phil and Stephen explore answers to these vital questions. WT 459-777 Eternity Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) | Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License | creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 Videos and Images from Pixabay.com and other sources.

Young, Thin, and Healthy Jul 25, 2018

Phil and Stephen discuss medical breakthroughs that promise to help us all stay young, thin, and healthy. The 'Big Bang' of Alzheimer's: Scientists ID genesis of disease, focus efforts on shape-shifting tau Scientists have discovered a "Big Bang" of Alzheimer's disease – the precise point at which a healthy protein becomes toxic but has not yet formed deadly tangles in the brain. The revelation offers a new strategy to detect the devastating disease before it takes hold and has spawned an effort to develop treatments that stabilize tau proteins before they shift shape. New Pill Can Reverse Obesity And Type 2 Diabetes How to Eliminate Cancer from Our Genome These anti-aging pills seem to be actually working Pills hailed as the first real “anti-aging” drugs inched a little closer to the market after a study found they cut the number of respiratory infections in the elderly by half. The drugs: The pills act on an aging-related pathway called TORC1. Inhibiting this pathway “has extended life span in every species studies to date,” according to Joan Mannick, who led the study for drug giant Novartis. Those species include mice and worms. WT 458-776 Eternity Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) | Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License | http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 Videos and Images from Pixabay.com and other sources.

The End of Data Modeling? Jul 20, 2018

When it comes to managing data for modern, agile environments, is data modeling a roadblock? Or is it, in fact, one of the keys to achieving agility? If traditional data modeling will no longer support what businesses need today, what are the alternatives? In this edition of Fast Forward, Desmarets talks with hosts Phil Bowermaster and Stephen Gordon about the challenges that surround data modeling in the age of NOSQL databases and agile development. He outlines how Domain-Driven Design can help shape the future both for development teams and for data modelers themselves -- who may have more to look forward to than becoming extinct. About Pascal Desmarets Pascal is the founder and CEO of Hackolade, a company that focuses on producing user-friendly, powerful visual tools to smooth the onboarding of NOSQL technologies into corporate IT landscapes. Hackolade's software combines the simplicity of data modeling with the power of NOSQL databases to provide reduced development time, increased application quality, and lower execution risks. FF 006-775 Music: www.bensound.com Image from Pixabay.com

Flat Earth -- Are People Getting Dumber? Jul 18, 2018

Are more people subscribing to the idea that the Earth is flat? How does flat Earth relate to other conspiracies: 9/11Lizardoid aliens controlling the earthMandela Effect Have these all been enabled by the Web? Are they spread by people trying to refute them? More and More Americans are Starting to Believe Earth is Flat In America interest in the flat-Earth movement appears to be growing. In September Bobby Ray Simmons Jr., a rapper also known as B.o.B, launched a crowd-funding campaign to send satellites into orbit to determine the Earth’s shape. On November 9th, 500 “flat-Earthers” assembled in North Carolina for the first annual Flat Earth International Conference. Data from Google Trends show that in the past two years, searches for “flat earth” have more than tripled. The Flynn Effect is the observation that IQ scores have been going up. Unfortunately there may be evidence that that trend is not as reliable as it used to be. So is it wrong to do a show on this subject? Are we just encouraging people to believe stupid things and become dumber? WT 457-774 Eternity Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) | Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License | http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 Videos and Images from Pixabay.com and other sources.

When Everybody Is Super Jul 14, 2018

Thoughts on the Incredibles and the Incredibles 2: do these movies value being "naturally" super over technological advancement? The Incredibles movies have a weird relationship with technology https://bit.ly/2MSukcL But there’s another, subtler thread running through the two Pixar films. And because it repeats, it seems to point to a larger philosophy: both movies feature villains whose evil deeds give the franchise a markedly technophobic outlook. In The Incredibles, it’s Syndrome, a normal human with no superpowers who uses his tech skills to amass a huge fortune, which he plans to use to effectively rid the world of supers. In The Incredibles 2, it’s Screenslaver, a normal human with no superpowers who uses her tech skills to amass a huge fortune, which she plans to use to actually rid the world of supers. Are these movies sectretly anti-tech? And do they secretly hearken back to a happier time when white guys ran everything? Phil and Stephen discuss. WT 456-773 Eternity Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) | Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License | http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 Videos and Images from Pixabay.com and other sources

Reopening the Web Jul 12, 2018

Does the Web need reopening? Let’s start with one more thought from Survival of the Richest: Of course, it wasn’t always this way. There was a brief moment, in the early 1990s, when the digital future felt open-ended and up for our invention. Technology was becoming a playground for the counterculture, who saw in it the opportunity to create a more inclusive, distributed, and pro-human future. But established business interests only saw new potentials for the same old extraction, and too many technologists were seduced by unicorn IPOs. --Too bad that’s all over and can never come again. Oh, wait. The web had failed to serve humanity: Tim Berners-Lee was crushed when Russia used Facebook to meddle in U.S. elections World wide web inventor Sir Tim Berners-Lee said he was “devastated” by recent abuses of the web, in an interview with Vanity Fair. He is working on a new platform, named Solid, to re-decentralise the internet and take power away from monopolies like Google and Facebook. He still has hope that the internet can become a something that serves humanity well. The Decentralized Internet Is Here, With Some Glitches An attempt to do this was also the major story arc of the last two seasons of Silicon Valley. What will a re-opened web look like? More like the original blogosphere? What will we do with it? How will we use it differently? WT 456-773 Eternity Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) | Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License | http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 Image from Pixabay.com

Save the Billionaires! Jul 10, 2018

A futurist thinks he's speaking at a conference only to realize that he's been asked to advise a secret meeting of billionaires. Survival of the Richest They are looking for ways to pretoct themselves fro some mysterious future "event." His conclusion? "For all their wealth and power, they don’t believe they can affect the future." The author goes on to ask whether transhumanists and techno-optimists aren't essentially the same as the billionaires -- looking or a way to save their own miserbale lives with little or no regard for anyone else. Phil and Stephen discuss. WT 455-772 Eternity Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) | Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License | http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 Image from Pixabay.com

Aliens and Uncertainty Jul 07, 2018

Here’s a case in point on radical uncertainty. Do we believe this? Are we alone? The question is worthy of serious scientific study https://bit.ly/2yQJCNb Declassified information from covert studies is interesting, but not scientifically helpful. This is a topic worthy of open scientific inquiry, until there is a scientific consensus based on evidence rather than prior expectation or belief. If there are indeed extraterrestrial craft visiting Earth, it would greatly benefit us to know about them, their nature and their intent. Moreover, this would present a great opportunity for mankind, promising to expand and advance our knowledge and technology, as well as reshaping our understanding of our place in the universe. What Happened to the Aliens? https://bit.ly/2KDEX5W We May Be All Alone in the Known Universe, a New Oxford Study Suggests https://for.tn/2Kuh8ho Our main result is to show that proper treatment of scientific uncertainties dissolves the Fermi paradox by showing that it is not at all unlikely ex ante for us to be alone in the Milky Way, or in the observable universe. Our second result is to show that, taking account of observational bounds on the prevalence of other civilizations, our updated probabilities suggest that there is a substantial probability that we are alone. GEEKOUT Batman Ninja Ready Player One and The Last Jedi revisited WT 454-771 Eternity Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) | Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License | http://creativecommons.org/licenses/b... Image from Pixabay.com

The Declaration of WTF Jul 05, 2018

First, or course, comes the Declaration of Independence Then we had the Declaration of Singularity The came the Declaration of Amazing But maybe we’ve been doing our Declarations wrong. Are we putting the cart before the horse? The DoI announced the beginning of the United States as an entity, but it didn’t settle the matter. It took an ugly, bloody revolution to do that. Maybe what we need is a declaration of radical uncertainty--meaning that we don’t really know for sure what’s going on and that we can’t reliably say what’s going to happen next. Let’s not be too quick to rule things out. (We should think in terms of what is more and less likely,) There are many possible futures in play -- good and bad. Risks: we don’t know for sure what we’re doing and there’s always unintended consequences. Greater risks: keep pretending we know what we’re doing and bring on disaster anyway. Or maybe just a mediocre future when we could have had an amazing one. WT 453-770 Eternity Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) | Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License | http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 Image from Pixabay.com

Mysteries, Paradoxes, and Uncertainty Jul 03, 2018

Mysteries abound. Why does the word behave the way it does? Social Media -- technology that should be making us happier and connecting us is making us miserable and driving us apart. What gives? More jobs exist than there are people out of work. But still we have the depression, opiate crisis, and angst discussed in recent shows. What gives? Autonomous vehicles may save thousands of lives. And they may be the economic death of cities. Autonomous Vehicles Might Drive Cities to Financial Ruin The world grows richer through trade, yet we are seeing a revival of protectionist tendencies… at least here in the US. Robots may start taking our jobs. One day soon we may live in a post-scarcity society. But there is not path from here to there, nor is anyone talking about one -- except for advocates of basic income. What gives? What should we do in the face of all these perplexing puzzles? Next time. WT 452-769 Eternity Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) | Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License | creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 Image from Pixabay.com

New Capabilities New Risks Jun 26, 2018

New technologies bring unintended consequences and often unexpected risks. A new method of treatment introduces a whole new category of risk: Could genome sequencing in healthy persons create “sick patients for life”? It was also found that in 2 of the 11 cases diagnosed as carriers, the doctor had misinterpreted the genetic information. The lead study author, Jason Vassy, says that: “Sequencing healthy individuals will inevitably reveal new findings for that individual, only some of which will have actual health implications. This study provides some reassuring evidence that primary care providers can be trained to manage their patients’ sequencing results appropriately”. New technologies always bring new risks. The threat of EMP attack is predicated on the fact that our modern, electrified, connected world provides so many benefits Solar Storm of 1859 - didn’t hurt us much because...1859. What other new risks are emerging technologies going to introduce? Possible categories: Autonomous vehiclesVirtual Reality WT 449-766 Eternity Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) | Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License | http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 Image from Pixabay.com

Adjacent Realities: Crossing the Line Jun 23, 2018

We are all realized possibilities. Before you existed, before you became a part of reality, you were a possibility — and a very remote possibility at that. As we have explored in earlier posts and podcasts, 1,000 years ago, the chances that you would ever exist were infinitesimal. Heck, even a couple of years before you were born, the odds were not great. (And by “not great,” I mean less than the chance that you might win a big Lotto jackpot.) You are a vastly improbable being. We all are. But luckily, improbable does not mean impossible. We each owe our very existence to the fact that unlikely outcomes do occur. If the vastly unlikely possibility of my existence can be achieved, other unlikely outcomes can be achieved. What’s the difference between, real, possible, and impossible? What’s the difference between probability and reality? Let’s explore. AR 003-765 On the Cool Side Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) | Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 Stock footage and some images from Pixabay.com

Adjacent Realities: The Big Lie Jun 21, 2018

When talking about the possible, we must from the outset confront the big lie that all too often accompanies it. Unlike many big lies, this one is not always offered with an intent to deceive. (At least, not a malicious intent.) When we say it to others, we are usually trying to be encouraging. And in a world where people can always use a little encouragement, that doesn’t seem like a bad thing. We’ve all heard the lie. Most of us have probably said it. And some of us, I’m afraid, say it all the time. But starting today, I’d like to invite you never to tell this lie again. And if you hear someone else say it, I hope you will recognize it for the lie that it is. In this edition of Adjacent Realities, we explore what that lie is and why it can do so much harm. AR 002-764 On the Cool Side Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) | Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 Stock footage and some images from Pixabay.com

Adjacent Realities: The Fourth Wall Jun 20, 2018

Most of us like to think that reality is something that human beings can comprehend. And, more to the point, we tend to think that we personally are among those who have a pretty good handle on it. Maybe not, says Donald Hoffman, a professor of cognitive science at the University of California, Irvine. He has been studying the relationship between evolution and our grasp of reality. His conclusions are probably not what you’d expect: “Evolution has shaped us with perceptions that allow us to survive. But part of that involves hiding from us the stuff we don’t need to know. And that’s pretty much all of reality, whatever reality might be. “ According to Hoffman, actually understanding reality provides no evolutionary advantage. What we have are models of reality that are optimized around keeping us alive and able to reproduce. We can’t get at real reality no matter what we do, because we have been designed (or at least optimized) NOT to get it. We enjoy movies and other forms of entertainment that break the “fourth wall” between the world of the story and the real(?) world in which we live. Is this because we are constantly striving to break our very own fourth wall — the barrier that stands between the world as we know it and other levels of reality? AR 001-763 On the Cool Side Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) | Licensed under Creative Commons: By (incompetech.com) | Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 Stock footage and some images from Pixabay.com

Is Something Killing All the Aliens? Jun 16, 2018

Is it possible that we never met any aliens because somebody killed them all? Or might it be that one day WE will kill them all? Aliens Are Real, But Humans Will Probably Kill Them All, New Paper Says "What if," Berezin wrote in a new paper posted March 27 to the preprint journal arxiv.org,"the first life that reaches interstellar travel capability necessarily eradicates all competition to fuel its own expansion?" So maybe the aliens are actually out there and we just haven’t met them yet. And we may “meet” them briefly before they wipe us out. Or maybe we will be the first to develop interstellar travel and WE will be the ones to wipe everybody out? Or what if the first (or an early) arrival on the interstellar scene decided to be the scourge of the scourges? We could protect friendly aliens but totally go nuts on those that can’t live and let live. Maybe the fact that we are nice but not TOO nice could work as an advantage not only for us but for everybody else in the galaxy. Given sufficiently advanced technology, we might take a more Arthur C. Clarke approach. Isolate a species from the rest of the universe until they are ready to play nice. And THAT approach might be another answer to the Fermi paradox. Why haven’t we met aliens? We’re on probation. Or as we call it around here: we’re in time out. WT 448-762 Eternity Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) | Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License | creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 Image from Pixabay.com

Is Social Media Killing Us? Jun 15, 2018

Is social media killing us? If so, how do we fix it? Correlation is not causation, but still there is a huge correlation between rising depression rates and the ascendancy of social media. For example, teenage depression started going up about the time the smartphone was introduced. Now we are in the midst of an opiate addiction epidemic and a suicide epidemic, as highlighted by recent celebrity suicides. We always talk about how 30,000 people are killed by non-self-driving cars every year in the US. Well suicide is lots worse. Last year, 45,000 Americans killed themselves. Suicide is up 30% for the population as a whole, nearly 50% for some demographics. The jump in depression and suicide may not ALL be technology-driven, but what if it’s just MOSTLY technology-driven? What if it’s just 25% technology driven? Would we put up with anything else doing that kind of damage? How is it doing it? Unhealthy memes? Narrowing narratives? Status anxiety? Nihilism-inducing pointlessness? Possibles Cures: RelinquishmentPower throughESCAPE! We Adapt WT 447-761 Eternity Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) | Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License | http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 Image from Pixabay.com

Closer Than We Think Jun 12, 2018

Are breakthrough technologies progressing faster than we think? Phil and Stephen review three recent news items that indicate they may be. Sucking carbon dioxide from air is cheaper than scientists thought Siphoning carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere could be more than an expensive last-ditch strategy for averting climate catastrophe. A detailed economic analysis published on 7 June suggests that the geoengineering technology is inching closer to commercial viability. Driverless street cleaning trucks begin trial operations in Shanghai A fleet of driverless street cleaning vehicles has begun trial operations at an industrial park in Shanghai, according to the Shanghai-based news portal The Paper on Friday. The convoy, which includes a 6m-long truck and a 3m-long minibus, has been designed and developed by Autowise.ai, a Shanghai technology company, for different road widths. 3D-printing human corneas Scientists can 3D-print a human cornea in ten minutes. WT 446-760 Eternity Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) | Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License | http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 Image from Pixabay.com

Frickin' Lasers Save the Universe Jun 09, 2018

Phil and Stephen discuss two recent examples of the amazing potential of lasers to change everything. Lasers Could Make Computers 1 Million Times Faster A billion operations per second isn't cool. Know what's cool? A million billion operations per second. That's the promise of a new computing technique that uses laser-light pulses to make a prototype of the fundamental unit of computing, called a bit, that could switch between its on and off, or "1" and "0" states, 1 quadrillion times per second. That's about 1 million times faster than the bits in modern computers. The researchers also raised the possibility that their lattice could be used for quantum computing at room temperature. Stimulating brains with lasers can create ‘Matrix’-like false experiences At the University of California at Berkeley, researchers have been busy exploring ways to project a holographic image directly into the brain. As they have discovered, this can be used to both read neural activity and also to stimulate it. The results could mean one day being able to activate or suppress thousands of neurons at once; copying patterns of real brain activity to trick the brain into thinking that it’s felt, seen or sensed something. So Star Wars with a touch of The Matrix or Inception, then! WT 445-759 Eternity Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) | Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License | http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 Image from Pixabay.com

Beyond MoneyBall: Sports Analytics and the Real World Jun 01, 2018

In this edition of FastForward, Dave Schrader talks with us about the unexpected relationship between business analytics and sports analytics. What does the world of sports have to teach us about doing business in the age of digital transformation and data driven business models? Dave talks us through the story of how an analytics guru from the business world become an expert in sports analytics. He tells how he came to be spearheading "Moneyball" projects at college campuses all over the world. In these projects, students with an interest in math or statistics take on an analytical challenege using real data from one (or more) of the school's athletic programs. Dave also shows why there is more to sports analytics than most of us realize. It isn't just batting averages these days. Projects in sports analytics can deal with complex issues like fan loyalty and player health markers. Join us for a fascinating discussion. About Out Guest With PhD in Computer Science from Purdue, Dave Schrader - - known to many as “Dr Dave” -- has managed engineering and marketing functions in a number of settings within the analytics and database field, most recently for Teradata. He serves on the Board of Directors for the Teradata University Network – a free resource with 5000 faculty and 12,000 student participants. Dave is best known for his role as an advocate for sports analytics. Last year alone he gave 59 talks on the subject at 32 different universities, reaching more than 2,200 students. Music: www.bensound.com Image from Pixabay.com FF 005-758

Gold From Thin Air May 29, 2018

We may be entering an age of wonder materials that save the planet. High-quality carbon nanotubes made from carbon dioxide in the air break the manufacturing cost barrier “The most valuable material ever sold” Carbon nanotubes are super-materials that can be stronger than steel and more conductive than copper. So despite much research, why aren’t they used in applications ranging from batteries to tires? Answer: The high manufacturing costs and extremely expensive price, according to the researchers. The good news: High-quality carbon nanotubes at a low cost. Carbon Nanotubes have a huge variety of potential applications for energy, medicine, industry, consumer devices. https://bit.ly/2GRLALW And we’re only just beginning to figure out what they’re good for. Make them widely available at a low cost and there’s no telling what people will figure out to do with them. More Good News: In this process, the carbon comes straight from CO2 in the atmosphere. A “gold rush” for CO2 would have the geoengineering benefit of reducing atmospheric carbon. A self-funded way to mitigate climate change? Potential Downside: What id the gold rush goes on and sucks too much CO2 out of the atmosphere. Could it trigger an ice age? WT 444-757 Eternity Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) | Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License | http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 Image from Pixabay.com

Attack of the Fans May 26, 2018

It’s a full-on geekout as Phil and Stephen discuss the most critical question of our times: to go see Solo, or not to go see Solo? Are today’s Star Wars fans like the Star Trek fans who breathed new life into a canceled TV series or like the Stargate fans who beat Stargate: Universe to death? Or are they something else entirely? What does it mean to be a movie fan these days? Also: SyFy cancelling The Expanse. Netflix’ Lost in Space -- worth a look? Youtube’s Cobra Kai -- best sequel in the history of the universe? And other geeky stuff! WT 443-756 Eternity Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) | Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License | http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 Image from Pixabay.com

Aliens Among Us May 24, 2018

Is it possible that life here began out there? The https://bit.ly/2IvODz9 hypothesis suggests that it did: But what if it wasn’t ALL life? What if just some life on Earth came from elsewhere? A controversial study has a new spin on the otherworldliness of the octopus The genetic divergence of Octopus from its ancestral coleoid sub-class is very great … Its large brain and sophisticated nervous system, camera-like eyes, flexible bodies, instantaneous camouflage via the ability to switch color and shape are just a few of the striking features that appear suddenly on the evolutionary scene. It is plausible then to suggest they [octopuses] seem to be borrowed from a far distant ‘future’ in terms of terrestrial evolution, or more realistically from the cosmos at large. This line of thinking implies that panspermia is true and that perhaps the octopus is a later “deposit” on the Earth. That would also help account for this: 7 Reasons Why Humans May Not Have Come From Earth 1. We look so different 2. We're too advanced 3. We can't sleep 4. We don't like it here 5. Rapid Overpopulation 6. A Prison Planet 7. So where did we come from? We live in increasingly weird times. Will we one day accept that life on this planet started elsewhere? Maybe. Either way, we will almost certainly accept as fact ideas even stranger than that. WT 442-755 Eternity Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) | Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License | http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 Image from Pixabay.com

Yanny, Laurel, and the Mandela Effect May 22, 2018

Why would the the Yanny-Laurel phenomenon tell us anything about the Mandela Effect? They have nothing in common! Or do they? Let’s start with a quick recap: Mandela Effect Yanny-Laurel Of course, Yanny-Laurel relates to the famous Dress Controversy Is it white and gold or blue and black?vPhil can tune Yanny-Laurel to hear either or both words, but he can’t see blue and black no matter whahe does with the dress. So two people can’t agree on the color of an image or what a word is even when looking at / listening to the exact same thing. But there’s more: You can KNOW that the upper grey and the lower grey are the exact same color, but can you make yourself see it that way? Without covering part of the picture up? Back to the Mandela Effect -- if we can’t agree with each other on simple questions in the present tense (if we can’t even agree with OURSELVES on the answers to simple questions) should we really be so certain that we are correctly remembering movie lines or peanut butter brand names or the death of a world leader? But in a sense, these example prove the Mandela Effect is real. There really are different universes. Lots of them. And we are each living in one of our own. WT 441-754 Eternity Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) | Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License | http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 Image from Pixabay.com and other sources.

Is AI the Biggest Thing Ever? May 19, 2018

Google CEO Sundar Pichai certainly seems to think so. Artificial intelligence could be our saviour, according to the CEO of Google AI is probably the most important thing humanity has ever worked on. I think of it as something more profound than electricity or fire,” he said. “Any time you work with technology, you need to learn to harness the benefits while minimising the downsides. Could something really be bigger than fire or electricity? Fire enabled cooking, forging, baking clay. It is a cornerstone of civilization. Electricity facilitated and accelerated industrialization and provided for a communications revolution. It ultimately powered digitization. Let’s explore the changes that AI may enable that really will make it the biggest thing ever. WT 440-753 Eternity Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) | Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License | http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 Image from Pixabay.com

Five Myths About AI May 17, 2018

Even when he’s not on the show with us, futurist Thomas Frey provides us with lots of interesting subject matter for discussion. His folks at Impact Labs have published an interesting essay on Five Myths of Artificial Intelligence. https://bit.ly/2rBoBzH But wait: how many of these are actually myths? Let’s discuss. Myth No. 1 You can differentiate between a machine and a human. Myth No. 2 The U.S. is falling behind in the race for AI breakthroughs. Myth No. 3 AI will automate the economy and put people out of work. Myth No. 4 AI can remove human bias from decision-making. Myth No. 5 Artificial intelligence is a threat to mankind. WT 440-753 Eternity Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) | Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License | http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 Image from Pixabay.com

Three Races: A. I., Aging, and Space May 16, 2018

There are many technological races taking place right now. Three of them have been fairly regular topics of discussion on this show: The Space Race The Race Against Aging The AI Race Which of these races should we be focused on right now? In space, as we have noted, nation states are racing against private entities. The race against aging is currently taking place mostly in the private sector. We ALL have a personal stake in that one. A recent Internet meme showed Elon Musk and his mom and suggested that rather than racing to Mars he should be racing to reverse aging. The AI race is more nearly a clash of world powers, although the US is currently splitting its leadership position between businesses on one side and universities and the military on the other. China has an aggressive plan to move ahead. But this time out, everyone is playing. AI is the new space race. Here’s what the biggest countries are doing https://bit.ly/2rhhlIx Which of these races is the most urgent? If they don’t end aging, I’m going to die. But if we don’t win the AI race, we may face total economic defeat by the winning power. Also, AI has the potential to end the world. On the other hand, who is more likely to conquer aging: a country that is ahead in AI or a country that is not? Same goes for space. Maybe when you come down to it, there is really only one race going. WT 439-752 Eternity Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) | Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License | http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 Image from Pixabay.com

What Can We NOT Rule Out? May 12, 2018

Is humanity the first technological species to exist in this solar system (or even on this planet?) The quick and easy answer is yes, but maybe we don’t know that for sure. Prior Indigenous Technological Species But if a prior technological, perhaps spacefaring, species ever arose in the Solar System, it might have produced artifacts or other technosignatures that have survived to present day, meaning Solar System artifact SETI provides a potential path to resolving astrobiology’s question. Lots of great tidbits in this paper: Carl Sagan once toyed with the idea that the moons of Mars might be artificial objects. A current astronomer suggests we should be looking for “city lights” on Kuiper Belt objects This is in keeping with the show we did a while back about there potentially being many more planets in the solar system and we just haven’t discovered them yet. One of them may be home to a current (not extinct) technological civilization. But if we can’t rule this out, what CAN we rule out? Prior civilization on Earth? No Aliens living among us now? No Simulation hypothesis / Matrix / Boltzmann brains? No Occam’s Razor says we shouldn’t buy any of this. But maybe skepticism isn’t the whole answer? Is there a benefit to be gained in exploring these unlikely scenarios? WT 438-751 Eternity Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) | Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License | http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 Image from Pixabay.com

Turn Up the Funny May 10, 2018

Flipping our emotional switches, Part 2 We are getting closer to identifying the individual emaitional switches in the brain. What might this imply for future strategies for managing our emotions? If we are now getting a handle on fear, what’s next? What would be the best candidates for future emotional switches? Anger: Again, to tamp it down. No good reason to turn this one up, right? (We already have social media for that.) Empathy: Would be great if we had a whole industry focused on cranking this one up. Alternatively, if we could find the switch, this MIGHT be one that we would eventually manipulate against the subject’s will. Violent criminals, for example. But that is an EXTREMELY risky idea. Sense of humor: If there was one switch a would personally like to see flipped on a vast portion of the population. Like anger, I think this one has been manipulated by social media and other forces. It would be great to find a way to bring it back. How about the ability to turn up optimism? What if we could increase our sense of wonder? WT 437-750 Eternity Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) | Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License | http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 Image from Pixabay.com

Turn off the Fear May 08, 2018

Flipping the emotional switches, Part 1 We are getting closer to identifying the individual emotional switches in the brain. What might this imply for future strategies for managing our emotions? Researchers Find Fear and Courage Switches in Brain https://bit.ly/2rmpkEO Researchers have identified a cluster of neurons in mouse brains that encourage fear response to perceived threats. When an adjacent cluster of neurons is activated, boldness and courage behaviors are exhibited. Let’s talk about this one specifically. Who would have good reason to turn fear down (or off?) First responders: firefighters, police EMTs, soldiers People who suffer from irrational fears? Business people who fear public speaking or making sales calls? These might actually be different kinds of fear, but the idea that you can flip a switch in the brain and suddenly start acting boldly is pretty enticing. Would there ever be a time when we would turn up somebody’s fear response? What about other emotions? We will look at those next time. WT 436-749 Eternity Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) | Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License | http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 Image from Pixabay.com

Universal Basic Super Powers May 05, 2018

Universal Basic Happiness, Part 3 (Plus geekout Avengers review!) VR puts us in the digital world, where scarcity doesn’t exist. It is one way of getting to post-scarcity and will probably play an important role in the post-scarcity future But we also need post-scarcity in the non-digital world We need to become Sexy Immortal BIllionaires with Superpowers in the real world Re-examining that formula -- the words missing are “good” and “happy” Post-scarcity will be the final elimination of income inequality because it will well and truly no longer matter. SPOILERS ahead We are already smarter than Thanos Like all Malthusians, he suffers from a terribly scarcity-based mindset WT 435-748 Eternity Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) | Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License | http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 Images from Pixabay.com and other sources.

Universal Basic Reality May 04, 2018

Universal Basic Happiness, Part 2 As we continue our discussion of possible solutions to various inequalities, Phil outlines one possible way e could make everybody -- that’s EVERYBODY -- completely happy. Wireheading: This Strange Experiment from the 1950s Wired Pleasure Directly Into the Brain In the early 1950s, some very odd experiments were being performed at Tulane University in Louisiana. Dr. Robert G. Heath found that he could manipulate the pleasure and pain centers of the brain by surgically placing electrodes deep inside. Is it time to turn this into a universally available solution? Wouldn’t it solve all other inequalities? We could all live in hovels eating gruel every day. And we’d be happy! But first we might want to face these rather difficult questions: Would we be useful? Would our lives still be meaningful? Alternatively, virtual reality could open up new avenues of subjective experience without rewiring our brains. Can VR compensate for sex inequality and income inequality? On its own, VR will probably never wipe out all those problems. However, VR is actually a subset of a bigger phenomenon. Next time, we’ll look at that bigger phenomenon. WT 434-747 Eternity Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) | Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License | creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 Image from Pixabay.com.

Universal Basic Sex May 03, 2018

Universal Basic Happiness, Part 1 Last Weekend, Robin Hanson stirred things up by inquiring why the people concerned about income inequality aren’t worried about other forms of inequality: Those w/ less access to sex plausibly suffer similarly to those with low income, & might similarly hope to organize to lobby for redistribution along this axis. Strikingly, I see little overlap between those concerned about income & sex inequality. https://bit.ly/2HMKlyF Phil and Stephen discuss: If Universal Basic Income becomes a thing, will Universal Basic Sex be next? It would be a difficult solution to implement. Some of the hysterical reactions have been that Robin is calling for rape and/or sexual slavery to cure the sex inequality. Could universal basic sex be managed in such a way that it protected individual freedom and dignity? Sex bots, anyone? We will come back to sexbots in a later podcast. Meanwhile, here’s a much bigger inequality: happiness. Some people are a lot happier than others. Some just seem to have happy dispositions. Doesn’t that transcend most other inequalities? Think about it: There are poor people who are happy. There are rich people who are miserable. They are people who have a lot of sex who hate their lives. There are people who are completely celibate who love every minute of their lives. Related: Why $50,000 May Be the (New) Happiness Tipping Point https://ti.me/2eMg09t So if happiness is the big inequality, how do we fix it? We’ll explore further in part 2. WT 433-746 Eternity Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) | Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License | http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 Images from Pixabay.com and other sources.

Immortality So Far So Good Apr 28, 2018

Who Wants to Live Forever? Part 3 We conclude our three-part discussion with futurist Thomas Frey by looking into when and how a cure for aging might be found. Is Death Our Only Option? https://goo.gl/m1UDax What is the most likely path the ending aging? Drugs NMN (NAD+) Metformin Surgery / Treatments? (Telomeres?) Genetic Modification / CRISPR? Other How long before it is being reliably done for a small subset of the population? How long before it is an option being enjoyed by a large share / majority of the population? How long before it is an option for everybody? Thomas Frey is executive director and senior futurist at the Da Vinci Institute and an internationally renowned futurist and speaker. WT 432-745 Eternity Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) | Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License | http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 Image from Pixabay.com

Live Long and Prosper Apr 26, 2018

Who Wants to Live Forever? Part 2 This time out we look at the upside of not dying. (Shouldn't be too hard to find now, should it?) Is Death Our Only Option? 1.) Improved Health 2.) Delayed Death 3.) Dramatically Improved Intelligence 4.) New Age of Discovery 5.) New Social Structures 6.) More Stable Society 7.) Additional Levels of Maturity 8.) More Diverse Economy Thomas Frey is executive director and senior futurist at the Da Vinci Institute and an internationally renowned futurist and speaker. WT 431-744 Eternity Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) | Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License | http://creativecommons.org/licenses/b... Image from Pixabay.com

The Trouble with Immortality Apr 25, 2018

Who Wants to Live Forever? Part 1 If we could extend human life indefinitely, would it be a good idea? What are the downsides? Futurist Thomas Frey joins us for part 1 of a 3-part series. Last Known Person Born in the 19th Century Dies If what we are hearing about developments in anti-aging technology is true, the last person from the 20th century to die will do so long after the year 2118. But is that a good thing or a bad thing? Is Death Our Only Option? 1.) Old System Failures 2.) Messy Transition 3.) Family Dynasties 4.) Wealth Controlled by the Super Old 5.) Super Entrenched Political Systems 6.) Loss of Urgency 7.) Loss of Innovation 8.) Heavy-Handed Population Control WT 430-743 Eternity Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) | Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License | http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 Image from Pixabay.com

Shifting Stories, Shifting Realities Apr 21, 2018

Benefits of Making People Live Longer :01 Shifting Realities, Part 3. Phil and Stephen attempt to reverse-engineer the Mandela effect by looking at news stories and trying to figure out which narrative best explains them. Can we change our reality by changing the story we tell ourselves about what reality is? Israeli Scientists May Have Found A Cure for MS, Alzheimer’s, Crohn’s And Colitis in One Single Drug https://goo.gl/8iJbiv Possible stories: Cures are all around us, but the government and big pharma are working to keep them out of our hands. OR We live in an era where curing most or all major diseases is a real possibility A different kind of regret: Trying White Castle’s new Impossible Slider https://goo.gl/M2kjcP Progressives are ruining everything. First they bring veggie burgers into White Castle --next you won’t be able to get a real burger anywhere! OR We are rapidly moving towards a more humane future in which we can enjoy our favorite foods without causing billions of animals to suffer Is the Future of Farming Vertical? https://goo.gl/3R5mjd Also: https://youtu.be/ScH3TMZQ-dg Do we really want food that hasn’t been outside, nourished by the sun and outside air? OR Controlling exactly the right amount of light, water, etc means that less than 1% of crops thrown away (rather than 50% for crops in fields). Reduces waste, water uses, reduces herbicide and pesticide use to zero. Number of harvests are 4x that in fields. If we’re just going to create our own reality anyway, why no pick a good one? WT 429-741 Eternity Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) | Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License | http://creativecommons.org/licenses/b... Image from Pixabay.com

Does this Podcast Make You Angry? Apr 20, 2018

Shifting Realities, Part 2. Like it our not, our “reality” goes on mostly in our brains. If you contract a physical brain disease it can greatly shift your reality. But in recent years we have repeatedly exposed our minds to a completely different kind of infection. And now we’re living with the consequences. This Video Will Make You Angry https://youtu.be/rE3j_RHkqJc Memes aren’t just funny cat pictures. They are the driver of our shifting realities Are we doomed to live in a less real world-- one that makes us angrier? Is the Mandela Effect Real? Maybe reality really is changing (sort of)-- since we experience reality in our brains and our brains are drawing very different pictures of how things work than they used to. Are we letting ourselves be pushed into realities we don’t want to inhabit? WT 428-741 Eternity Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) | Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License | http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 Image from Pixabay.com

All Good Things... Apr 17, 2018

Shifting Realities, Part 1 The end of two paranormal and conspiracy-affirming institutions from the 90’s may have something to say about how differently we shape our reality today than we did in years past. Radio host Art Bell dies at 72 ‘The X-Files’ Is Done, and Please Let It Be For Good Both the X files and Art Bell belong to an earlier era. As entertainment, they are quite similar (although many take the Art Bell stuff seriously.) But it’s hard to use UFOs and conspiracy theories as entertainment when crazy, paranoid ideas are so common--more or less mainstream. Meanwhile, fringe ideas have gotten more extreme. Some people believe that every shooting that occurs is a FEMA production. Some seriously believe in the Mandela Effect -- which the X Files references in a humorous episode earlier this year. And a growing number of people are now saying that they intend to keep and “open mind” about whether the earth is flat. I sreality getting hard to grasp, or are we just having a harder time committing to it? Either way, what should we do next? WT 427-740 Eternity Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) | Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License | http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 Image from Pixabay.com

A New Kind of Space Race Apr 14, 2018

What are the implications of Vladimir Putin’s recent statement that he wants Russia to make a big move in space? Vlad's New Land Grab Vladimir Putin announces mission to MARS next year followed by manned trips in bid to colonise the Red Planet. The original space race was one of superpower vs. superpower. Are we ready for a new space race that pits nation states against other nation states, against private organizations? It would seem that the Human Imperative continues apace. Capability that once belonged only to massive-budget superpowers now sits with nation states and smaller groups. So who do we like in this race? Elon MUsk or Vladimir Putin? If the race heats up, would the US “adopt” Musk’s program and make it their own? Alternatively, is their room for Putin / Musk cooperation in getting humanity to Mars? WT 426-739 Eternity Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) | Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License | http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 Mars Image: NASA

No, You Are Not the Product Apr 12, 2018

It’s worse than that.You are that which produces the product. We start with some thoughts from Glenn Reynolds on the possible need for social media regulation: Social media firms want us addicted to approval. So much for WiFi making us smarter. goo.gl/KJiDgt Glenn shares an enlightening tweet from The Stoic Emperor goo.gl/YLZMkL: Almost all Americans own a smartphone or a computer. Each device contains the library of Alexandria. The sum total of all world knowledge. You can learn anything. Why don't you? Too busy tracking social status. Too enthralled by imagery your evolution can't resist. Then there’s this piece, also recommended by Glenn: You are not friends with Facebook and Mark Zuckerberg. You are their product. goo.gl/SrRKKp -- We conveniently forgot or ignored the fact that WE are the product Facebook sells. We are not Facebook’s customers. We don’t pay to use it. We give Facebook tons of data every time we sign on or post or ‘like’ something, and they make boatloads of money off us. They sell our information to advertisers. The small price we thought we were paying was seeing an annoying ad for a dress bought on StyleWe or shoes from Nordstroms follow us around for a few months. -- No exactly. We aren’t really the product. It’s worse. We are more like the livestock. Still, there may be hope in the face of all this angst. And it may come from a pretty unexpected source. WT 425-738 Eternity Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) | Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License | creativecommons.org/licenses

Should You Trust Your Computer? Apr 10, 2018

Phil and Stephen discuss the new film by Chris Paine, director of “Who Killed the Electric Car?” Do You Trust This Computer? doyoutrustthiscomputer.org This new documentary about the dangers and benefits of artificial intelligence (mostly the dangers) covers some serious subjects: AI and weapons Technology and Privacy issues Emergence of superintelligence Computers taking over A great lineup of AI luminaries discuss some pretty grim scenarios for how our AI-driven future might turn out. Phil contrasts the tone of the film with a recent essay by another big name in AI, Kai Fu Lee: We are here to create goo.gl/G48v8h All the dystopian talk is just nonsense. It’s too much imagination. We’re seeing AI going into new applications in what appears to be an exponential growth, but it's an exponential growth of applications of the mature technologies that exist. That growth will be over once we develop all of them. Then we have to wait for more breakthroughs for further advancement of AI. But you cannot predict further advancements. Who is right? And if Kai is wrong, what do we do about this? The film suggests “regulation” at the end, but there are big problems making that work. The surprising answer may be that we should NOT trust our computers and therefore we MUST push on with Artificial Intelligence research. Strange as that may seem. WT 424-737

Historical Fantasy (and Other Geeky Topics) Apr 07, 2018

It's a good old fashioned World Transformed Geekout as Phil explains how shows like Vikings and The Frankenstein Chronicles are blending history and fantasy in a new and fun way. (UPDATE: and you can add the new AMC series The Terror to that list.) Meanwhile, Stephen has thoughts on how the movie Ready Player One is completely different from the novel -- and why that's okay. Plus Phil recommends the new Starz series Counterpart, which is NOT (unfortunately) currently available on Amazon Prime as Phil says on the show --unless you have the Starz app. [Of course, you could do the one-week free trial and binge watch the show, but we would never recommend that people do anything like that.] BONUS: Stephen says you totally CAN watch Blade Runner 2049 on Amazon Prime -- so there is that. WT 423-736 Eternity Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) | Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License | creativecommons.org/licenses/b...

50 Life-Saving Breakthroughs Apr 04, 2018

Phil and Stephen take a look at The 50 Most Important Life-Saving Breakthroughs in History. Some of these a big medical breakthroughs that you would immediately think of like treatments for malaria, others are less expected (toilets, for example). When you count both ourselves and our ancestors whose lives were saved by these breakthroughs, most of us wouldn't be here today without them. Phil and Stephen review the items on the list and talk about the life-saving technologies they have personally benefited from. Plus: New therapy cures cancer with just one injection A new technique developed by researchers at Stanford University uses two agents which when combined, alert the body’s immune system to the presence of cancer, in order to eliminate it. Just one injection can be effective for a solid tumor. WT 422-735 Eternity Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) | Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License | http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 Images from Pixabay.com and other sources.

Will Mind-Reading Computers Replace Human Speech? Apr 03, 2018

Phil and Stephen discuss scenarios for the future of brain-computers interfaces and how they might alter human communication. Worldwide AI consciousness may replace human speech goo.gl/xdNvj7 ---- In just 32 years, humans won’t speak to each other and will instead communicate through a worldwide consciousness instead – using just our brains — new research shows. According to artificial intelligence research, this “hybrid intelligence” will understand the feelings of the people connected to it, and use their minds to help it grow. In the exhibition, HIBA (Hybrid Intelligence Biometric Avatar) is represented by an artistic impression, based on real research and tells its users: “I am made of you. You complete me and help me grow.” “You allow me to evolve – with each synergy I learn more, through this oneness we can achieve great things.” ---- No more secrets! New mind-reading machine can translate your thoughts and display them as text INSTANTLY goo.gl/zp7nmJ Researchers say they have developed a machine that can translate our thoughts. The astonishing machine will analyse what you are thinking and display it as text. Scientists hope that the machine can be used by people who are unable to speak. Related story (from last year): Elon Musk launches Neuralink, a venture to merge the human brain with AI goo.gl/S1zYnZ ---- centered on creating devices that can be implanted in the human brain, with the eventual purpose of helping human beings merge with software and keep pace with advancements in artificial intelligence. ---- Possibility Update: Fusion getting closer (more nearly adjacent?) Lockheed Martin Now Has a Patent For Its Potentially World Changing Fusion Reactor goo.gl/KWRR18 WT 421-734

Self-Driving Cars: Answering the Objections Mar 31, 2018

We have covered the safety risks of autonomous vehicles as well as potential privacy risks and risks to our personal freedom. Now let's answer some of those objections. It turns out that most of the arguments against self-driving cars are beside the point. Kids showing less interest in driving and car ownership. Right. They are ALREADY less interested. Self-driving cars didn’t cause it. Loss of autonomy? That only happens if we GIVE UP AUTONOMY. The price of liberty is eternal vigilance. If we lose it, it’s because we gave it away, not because autonomous vehicles took it. Self-driving car companies abusing our data? We have to put rules in place about our data. We have to do this anyway where social media, mobile phones, and web apps are concerned. Again, it is our responsibility to see to it that new technologies are implemented in a way that protect our rights. Safety: there is hardly any argument. The only way to argue against self-driving vehicles is to say they won't work (which they will) are that the lives they will save are not worth saving (which they are.) If we go to fully autonomous vehicles and they kill 10,000 people per year, we will be saving 20,000 lives per year. Everyone, even some of the harshest critics of self-driving cars, expects them to perform better than humans. Going forward we need caution, humility, and optimism. Before long, the math in favor of autonomous vehicles will be undeniable. WT 420-733 Eternity Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) | Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License | http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0

Do Flying Cars Suck? Mar 29, 2018

Safety may not be the only problem with autonomous vehicles. Is it possible that they threaten our privacy and our way of life? And with what we’re learning about Facebook and others, do we really want to open up a new way for intrusive technologies to stick their noses into our personal lives and personal space? Michael Walsh chimes in: As I noted on Twitter the other day, these vehicles are emasculating, imprisoning, anti-American, and inhuman. And now, in the wake of the first fatal accident involving an “autonomous vehicle,” they’re deadly as well. Even if they are safe, will driverless cars make us into a nation of passengers? Timid, passive beings willingly relinquishing control of our lives to the government and tech companies? Teenagers losing interest in car ownership. Many not even interested in getting their driver’s license. Will life in a self-driving world be less fun? And what does all this have to do with Phil's vacation in Hawaii? WT 419-732 Eternity Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) | Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License | http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0

Time to Abandon Self-Driving Cars? Mar 28, 2018

In Arizona, a pedestrian has been killed by a self-driving car. What went wrong? Was it the Uber system? Uber’s Self-Driving Cars Were Struggling Before Arizona Crash Disgraceful Dashcam Video Proves Uber Is the Theranos of Self-Driving Or is Uber just the tip of the iceberg? What risks are we willing to take to bring a new technology into play? Who decides what constitutes acceptable performance (and acceptable risk?) Even if the risks were exactly the same, is there something less tolerable about a human being dying at the hands of an autonomous machine than at the hands of human error? Tough questions. And we need to start addressing them. WT 418-731 Eternity Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) | Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License | http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0

The Hidden Possible Mar 24, 2018

We conclude our three-part series with a discussion of the Hidden Possible: possibilities both near and far that we haven’t thought of yet. We can generally only see the hidden possibilities through the rear-view mirror Example: The introduction of the Internet and the rise of mobile devices made social media the adjacent possible. And nobody saw it coming. Nobody foresaw Twitter. (Bonus hidden possibility: for a number of reasons, nobody saw the phenomenon of President Trump on Twitter.) Nobody foresaw Instagram Superstar as a career. Lots of Internet possibilities. The original Netflix -- with mailed DVDs -- was the hidden possible (The online delivery model for Netflix was the adjacent possible.) Uber, Lyft, AirBnB were all the hidden possible Amazon Drone Delivery Improving health via gut bacteria When we started this show, a self-driving car world was the hidden possible for most people. We saw it as adjacent. Now it is much more widely accepted as an adjacent possibility Some ideas are well known deep possibilities by some but still the hidden possible for many others: Post-Scarcity The Singularity WT 417-730 Eternity Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) | Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License | creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0

The Deep Possible Mar 22, 2018

In Part 2 of our three-part series, we look at possibilities that are little more remote. Maybe two or three rooms over, instead of only one. Or maybe many more. The Universal Assembler A Real World 'Star Trek' Replicator Is Now Possible Thanks To New Breakthrough goo.gl/KSW2tx The discovery of carbon nanotubes in 1991 led scientists to develop hundreds of "functionalizations" for nanotube openings. Most of these can be useful as molecular gates. The key innovation at Mattershift has been to create an inexpensive and scalable platform for this library of gates. With the ability to deploy Programmable Molecular Gateways at scale, we believe practical molecular factories are now possible. Post-scarcity -- A deeper, downstream scenario from Universal Assembler. (Whereas we listed post-employment as adjacent!) Interstellar Travel -- Mars colonies and asteroid mining may be adjacent, but we probably still don’t have all the parts for this. Digital Immortality -- very deep Also, many of the possibilities we think of as adjacent may prove to be Deep. Example: In the 1940’s we invented nuclear fission weapons and shortly after developed commercial nuclear power from fission reactors. In the 1950’s we invented nuclear fusion weapons with the expectation that commercial nuclear power from fusion reactors would soon follow. We thought we were adjacent to fusion power, but it has proved to be a much deeper challenge than we anticipated. Cure for Aging Cure for Obesity Fusion Power Robot Lawyers Robot doctors Next time: The Hidden Possible WT 416-729 Eternity Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) | Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License | creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0

The Adjacent Possible Mar 20, 2018

This is the first of three parts as we explore possibilities that are just around the corner. Or, as we like tsay, one room over. This is a follow-up to an earlier show on possibility. The Future and Unlimited Possibility The adjacent possible is a kind of shadow future, hovering on the edges of the present state of things, a map of all the ways in which the present can reinvent itself. Potentially Adjacent Possibilities Cure for Aging Controversial claim: “Elizabeth Parrish, CEO of Bioviva USA Inc., has become the first human being to be successfully rejuvenated by gene therapy, after her own company's experimental therapies reversed 20 years of normal telomere shortening.” Cure for Obesity Fusion Power Maybe finally adjacent? MIT Researchers Say Nuclear Fusion Will Feed the Grid “in 15 Years” Self-Driving Cars The technology is not adjacent; it’s already here and rapidly improving. What’s adjacent is a world where autonomous vehicles are in widespread use / on course to replace most or all human-driven vehicles. Compare to: Electric cars. Also adjacent. Flying cars. Deep. Other Possibilities: Robot Lawyers Robot doctors Post-employment Conversational User Interface Next time: The Deep Possible WT 415-728 Eternity Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) | Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License | creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0

Better Living Through Brainwaves Mar 17, 2018

Transformation Today How flashing lights and pink noise might banish Alzheimer’s, improve memory and more Neuroscientists are getting excited about non-invasive procedures to tune the brain’s natural oscillations. In March 2015, Li-Huei Tsai set up a tiny disco for some of the mice in her laboratory. For an hour each day, she placed them in a box lit only by a flickering strobe. The mice — which had been engineered to produce plaques of the peptide amyloid-β in the brain, a hallmark of Alzheimer’s disease — crawled about curiously. When Tsai later dissected them, those that had been to the mini dance parties had significantly lower levels of plaque than mice that had spent the same time in the dark1. Now, a growing body of evidence, including Tsai’s findings, hint at a meaningful connection to neurological disorders such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases. A non-intrusive path into the brain is a holy grail of sorts. If these treatments are even moderately or minimally successful, or they lead to treatments that are, it could be the start of a revolution in preventing and treating the whole range of disorders associated with aging. What other effects are possible? Might there be a set of oscillations to treat depression? To improve sleep? To build confidence? To generate state of euphoria or enlightenment? This is what “Binaural beats” claim to be able to do. But what if there is really something to it? WT 414-727 Eternity Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) | Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License | http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0

How Old Are You, Really? Mar 15, 2018

Phil and Stephen discuss how artificial intelligence might help to add years to our lives. AI Scientists Via Their 'Aging Clock' May Have Discovered How To Rewind Our Biological Clocks https://goo.gl/tsYor6 A group of scientists who study Artificial Intelligence (AI) say they’ve come up with a process that can not only measure biological age, but tell you whether you will live longer or die younger than other people your age, and how to increase your odds that you will do the former. Early days, but this is an important step towards detaching chronological age from biological age. One day there will be little or no correspondence. Someone apparently in their 20’s may be chronologically older than someone who looks like and has all the aging markers of someone in their 80’s. Like in Cory Doctorow, people will have a preferred “apparent” age --- Today, the only real options for slowing these numbers down are lifestyle choices In the near future there will be serious, significant interventions Interventions may come from unexpected sources Next time: Better Living Through Modified Brainwaves How flashing lights and pink noise might banish Alzheimer’s, improve memory and more WT 413-726

Outlawyering the Lawyers Mar 13, 2018

Whose jobs are the robots going to take away? It doesn't look like lawyers are safe... An AI just beat top lawyers at their own game Feb 25, 2018 A new study, conducted by legal AI platform LawGeex in consultation with law professors from Stanford University, Duke University School of Law, and University of Southern California, pitted twenty experienced lawyers against an AI trained to evaluate legal contracts. The human lawyers achieved, on average, an 85 percent accuracy rate, while the AI achieved 95 percent accuracy. The AI also completed the task in 26 seconds, while the human lawyers took 92 minutes on average. The AI also achieved 100 percent accuracy in one contract, on which the highest-scoring human lawyer scored only 97 percent. In short, the human lawyers were trounced. So will this cost lawyers their jobs? The linked article says no: "So does this spell the end of humanity? Not at all. On the contrary, the use of AI can actually help lawyers expedite their work, and free them up to focus on tasks that still require a human brain." On the Other hand… Yes these tools will make existing lawyers more productive, but that doesn’t mean it won’t cost lawyers’ jobs. How many billable hours have already been lost to LegalZoom? We see something similar happenning with AI's outdiagnosing doctors. Will we soon live in a world where we receive some or all of our medical care and legal advice from machine? Computers are already better than doctors at diagnosing some diseases Dec 12, 2017 Next time: how computers might play a role in diagnosing and treating the biggest killer of them all: aging. WT 412-725

10 Breakthrough Technologies for 2018 Part 2 Mar 01, 2018

Phil and Stephen continue discussing the MIT Technology Review list of 10 Breakthrough Technologies for 2018. In part 2, we look at: Babel Fish Earbuds Zero-Carbon Natural Gas Perfect Online Privacy Genetic Fortune-Telling Materials’ Quantum Leap What will be the biggest game-changer for 2018? Tune in and explore. WT 410-723 Eternity Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) | Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License | creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0

10 Breakthrough Technologies for 2018 Part 1 Feb 27, 2018

Phil and Stephen discuss the MIT Technology Review list of 10 Breakthrough Technologies for 2018. In part 1, we look at: 3-D Metal Printing Artificial Embryos Sensing City AI for Everybody Dueling Neural Networks What will be the biggest game-changer for 2018? Tune in to Parts 1 and 2 to find out. WT 409-722 Eternity Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

Welcoming Our Mutant Crayfish Overlords Feb 24, 2018

Phil and Stephen discuss major disruptions in biotech -- and in biology! New Pill Kills the Flu Virus in 24 Hours The Shionogi compound and Tamiflu take around the same time to entirely contain flu symptoms, but the former provides immediate relief more quickly.Now, a Japanese drugmaker claims to have developed a pill capable of killing of the virus in just one day. Find drugs that delay many diseases of old age In the future we won’t edit genomes—we’ll just print out new ones Think of the project as something like Henry Ford’s first automobile—hand built and, for now, one of a kind. One day, though, we may routinely design genomes on computer screens. Instead of engineering or even editing the DNA of an organism, it could become easier to just print out a fresh copy. Imagine designer algae that make fuel; disease-proof organs; even extinct species resurrected. This Mutant Crayfish Clones Itself, and It’s Taking Over Europe Over the past five years, Dr. Lyko and his colleagues have sequenced the genomes of marbled crayfish. In a study published on Monday, the researchers demonstrate that the marble crayfish, while common, is one of the most remarkable species known to science. GEEKOUT Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future Plus: Black Panther -- we haven't seen it yet! WT 408-721 Eternity Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

School Daze: New Approaches to Education Feb 22, 2018

Phil and Stephen discuss massive disruptions taking place in education. What students know that experts don't: School is all about signaling, not skill-building Is it possible that students are on to something? There is a massive gap between school and work, between learning and earning. A new study shows that students learn way more effectively from print textbooks than screens Across the studies, the texts differed in length, and we collected varying data (e.g., reading time). Nonetheless, some key findings emerged that shed new light on the differences between reading printed and digital content. After 100 Years of the Same Teaching Model It’s Time to Throw Out the Playbook It’s time to change the direction of the arrow by for once and for all turning it around and allowing it to originate from the student. Imagine a classroom where students are the ones driving the learning and are empowered to pursue things that matter to them. DARPA Is Planning to Hack the Human Brain to Let Us “Upload” Skills In the future, university education will be a coffeeshop We’re faced with an education bubble. Tuition and other costs associated with a college education have been outpacing inflation for decades. WT 407-720 Eternity Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

Signs of the Times Feb 20, 2018

Phil and Stephen ask whether current developments make the Singularity more plausible. The “Father of Artificial Intelligence” Says Singularity Is 30 Years Away At the World Government Summit in Dubai, I spoke with Jürgen Schmidhuber, who is the Co-Founder and Chief Scientist at AI company NNAISENSE, Director of the Swiss AI lab IDSIA, and heralded by some as the “father of artificial intelligence” to find out. Intel just put a quantum computer on a silicon chip Dutch quantum computing company QuTech, in conjunction with chip-maker Intel, yesterday unveiled a programmable two-qubit quantum computer running on a silicon chip. The researchers used a special type of qubit (the quantum version of a classical computer’s bits) called spin qubits to run two different quantum algorithms on a silicon chip. Japanese tour firm offers virtual reality holidays – with a first-class seat Fasten your seatbelts for a flight departing to Paris – and never leave the ground. That’s exactly what 12 passengers did at First Airlines in central Tokyo this week, where they relaxed in first and business-class seats and were served four-course dinners, before immersing themselves in 360-degree virtual reality (VR) tours of the City of Light’s sights. WT 406-719 Eternity Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

The Cloverfield Paradigm Feb 17, 2018

Phil and Stephen discuss the latest entry in the Cloverfield series. Is it a fun addition or a major disappointment? Plus we look at the whole movie franchise phenomenon. Someday soon will all movies be part of some extended universe, or has this thing just about played out? We explore the phenomenon of sub-franchises as played out in the Star Trek and James Bond movies (and on a grander scale in the Marvel cinematic universe.) Most importantly: has the time come at last for a Howard the Duck reboot? Join us. WT 405-718 Eternity Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

The Renaissance Cyborg Feb 15, 2018

Specialization Is for Insects, Part 2 This is a follow-up to our discussion on Realizing Possibilities ...Fast back in December. What kind of knowledge and skills will we need to thrive in a world where everything is a coffee shop? Rationally it would seem that there are advantages to possessing specialized knowledge and general knowledge. But are we becoming too focused on the former? Rather than letting technology make us ever more specialized, we should use it to broaden our horizons. At one time, the Renaissance Man was the model of the widely adept human being. Maybe now it's time for the Renaissance Cyborg. R. Buckminster Fuller was a fierce advocate of human beings as generalists. Specialization has bred feelings of isolation, futility, and confusion in individuals. It has also resulted in the individual’s leaving responsibility for thinking and social action to others. Specialization breeds biases that ultimately aggregate as international and ideological discord, which in turn leads to war. Bucky explained why he thought U. S. Navy officer training was the perfect generalist education in his book Utopia or Oblivion? WT 404-717 Eternity Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

Keeping the Lights On Feb 13, 2018

Stephen Pinker argues that the Enlightenment is the key driver behind massive improvement that is taking place in a number of different areas. He claims the enlightenment is working. Phil and Stephen discuss whether they agree with Pinker’s analysis and what the chances are that the enlightenment will keep doing what it’s doing. The Enlightenment is Working Globally, the 30-year scorecard also favors the present. In 1988, 23 wars raged, killing people at a rate of 3.4 per 100,000; today it’s 12 wars killing 1.2 per 100,000. The number of nuclear weapons has fallen from 60,780 to 10,325. In 1988, the world had just 45 democracies, embracing two billion people; today it has 103, embracing 4.1 billion. That year saw 46 oil spills; 2016, just five. And 37% of the population lived in extreme poverty, barely able to feed themselves, compared with 9.6% today. True, 2016 was a bad year for terrorism in Western Europe, with 238 deaths. But 1988 was even worse, with 440. Background on the Enlightenment Anti-enlightenment Trends Post-Modernism Authoritarian Governments Alt-Right / White Nationalists / the “Dark Enlightenment” WT 403-716 Eternity Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

Stem Cells Made to Order Feb 10, 2018

Phil and Stephen review more reasons that this is a great time to be alive. The little lizard with the big genome. Making skins cells into stem cells -- three different ways! The check-in procedure that could save your life. PLUS Geekout: deciphering the Voynich manuscript via AI. The Smiling Axolotl Hides a Secret: A Giant Genome Scientists have decoded the genome of the axolotl, the Mexican amphibian with a Mona Lisa smile. It has 32 billion base pairs, which makes it ten times the size of the human genome, and the largest genome ever sequenced. Axolotl genome sequenced, revealing regeneration genes Researchers create first stem cells using CRISPR genome activation In a scientific first, researchers at the Gladstone Institutes turned skin cells from mice into stem cells by activating a specific gene in the cells using CRISPR technology. The innovative approach offers a potentially simpler technique to produce the valuable cell type and provides important insights into the cellular reprogramming process. Google is using 46 billion data points to predict the medical outcomes of hospital patients Some of Google’s top AI researchers are trying to predict your medical outcome as soon as you’re admitted to the hospital. GEEKOUT Artificial Intelligence May Have Cracked Freaky 600-Year-Old Manuscript WT 402-715 Eternity Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

Extra! Voyage of the Space Roadster! Feb 09, 2018

Phil and Stephen reflect on the launch of the SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket, and Starman's drive to the asteroid belt. What is Elon Musk up to? Is this all just a publicity stunt? Or was that just a publicity stunt that NASA pulled back in July of 1969? Interesting times lie ahead for both NASA and SpaceX. Is it time NASA got out of the rocket business? Let’s discuss! Hat-tip to Brian Wang at Next Big Future for his outstanding coverage of this story. Third Burn successful going Past Mars to Asteroid Belt SpaceX Heavy Success will now publicly test US Government Spending Corruption [ Blistering analysis. But it’s possible that incompetence and an archaic approach, rather than corruption per se, are behind the massive spending. Also, we’re not convinced that the US government is trying to steal SpaceX IP. ] Falcon Heavy proved computer software for designing Big Falcon Rocket SpaceX Heavy is game changer for defense and NASA NOTE: Phil repeatedly uses the term “Orion” to refer to the NASA Space Launch System (SLS). The World Transformed regrets the error. WT 401-714 Eternity Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) | Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License | http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

Fast Forward -- The Data-Driven Enterprise Feb 08, 2018

In this edition of Fast Forward on the World Transformed, Peter Evans, Senior Director for Big Data Solutions at Solix (www.solix.com) talks with our hosts Phil Bowermaster and Stephen Gordon about the challenges and opportunities that organizations face as they move to data-driven business and operational models. What lies behind all the current hype about “digital transformation?” And what are the process and infrastructure changes that an organization must be willing to address in order to become a true data-driven enterprise? Let's explore! About Our Guest: Peter is the Senior Director for Big Data Solutions at Solix, specializing in Big Data, Data Virtualization, Business Intelligence and Advanced Analytics. He is a recognized expert in the design, implementation, and delivery of bespoke Business Intelligence and Analytics systems. Leveraging a broad variety of technologies, he has more than 16 years experience delivering such systems to some of the world’s leading companies. Peter is a member of the British Computer Society and Institute of Analysts and Programmers, and he holds certifications from Microsoft, Novell and Targit. He regularly contributes to the Database Journal and online forums and social media discussions in the areas of Analytics and Business Intelligence and Data Virtualization. Music: www.bensound.com FF 004-713

The Time Travel Mortality Wager Feb 06, 2018

Phil and Stephen discuss a familiar subject -- why this is the best time to be alive. But this time with a twist: how good would a life in the past have to be to persuade you to abandon the present? We just entered into a golden age of space exploration. Why all the pessimism? Thanks in part to infusions of capital and energy from tycoons like Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos private rocket companies are doing things that only governments previously did... See also Rocket Lab. Cancer ‘vaccine’ eliminates tumors in mice Activating T cells in tumors eliminated even distant metastases in mice, Stanford researchers found. Lymphoma patients are being recruited to test the technique in a clinical trial. Anti-Aging Pioneer Aubrey de Grey: “People in Middle Age Now Have a Fair Chance” I think we have got a 50-50 chance of getting to that tipping point in mice within five years from now, certainly it could be 10 or 15 years if we get unlucky. Similarly, for humans, a 50-50 chance would be twenty years at this point, and there’s a 10 percent chance that we won’t get there for a hundred years. Could a Protein Called Klotho Block Dementia and Aging? “We found that those mice that had been treated, within four hours had better brain function,” she said. This worked in young mice, old mice, and mice that had a condition similar to Alzheimer’s. WT400-712 Eternity Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

Reality: and Now the Bad News Feb 03, 2018

Phil and Stephen look at some dangerous possibilities that arise when the lines between reality and illusion are blurred. Reddit User Outperforms Disney With AI-generated Princess Leia I Made My Shed the Number One Restaurant on TripAdvisor British 15-year-old gained access to intelligence operations in Afghanistan and Iran by pretending to be head of CIA, court hears A 15-year-old gained access to plans for intelligence operations in Afghanistan and Iran by pretending to be the head of the CIA to gain access to his computers, a court has heard. From the bedroom of the Leicestershire home he shared with his mother, Kane Gamble used “social engineering” – where a person builds up a picture of information and uses it manipulate others into handing over more – to access the personal and work accounts of some of America's most powerful spy chiefs . Magic Mushrooms May Alter How You Feel About Nature (and Politics) Months after receiving psilocybin treatments for depression, patients report feeling more connected with nature and experience a shift away from authoritarian political views, researchers report. GEEKOUT New Dan Brown novel “Origin” has AI character Winston WT 399-711 Eternity Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

What Does a Thought Look Like? (And Other Amazing Stuff) Feb 01, 2018

Phil and Stephen review amazing news indicating that the future is closer than we think. Neuroscientists Have Followed a Thought as it Moves Through the Brain A study using epilepsy patients undergoing surgery has given neuroscientists an opportunity to track in unprecedented detail the movement of a thought through the human brain, all the way from inspiration to response. Blood test can detect eight cancers in early stages which could save half a million lives every year CancerSEEK is a blood test that detects tiny amounts of DNA and proteins released into the bloodstream from cancer cells. This can then indicate the presence of ovarian, liver, stomach, pancreatic, oesophageal, bowel, lung or breast cancers. The world's most powerful acoustic tractor beam could pave the way for levitating humans 3D printers could let you produce your own drugs Machines Teaching Each Other Could Be the Biggest Exponential Trend in AI WT 398-710 Eternity Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

Whales, Rats, Salamanders, and Immortality Jan 30, 2018

Phil and Stephen discuss three animals who might well show us how to live longer and healthier lives. Secrets of these 200-year-old whales who avoid cancer Why the bowhead whale lives 200 years and rarely gets cancer. Naked mole rats defy the biological law of aging In the world of animal models, naked mole rats are the supermodels. They rarely get cancer, are resistant to some types of pain, and can survive up to 18 minutes without oxygen. But perhaps their greatest feat, a new paper suggests, is that they don't age.” Google’s Calico Labs announces discovery of a “non-aging mammal.” In the first significant announcement since it was formed in 2013, Calico Labs researchers Rochelle Buffenstein, Megan Smith, and J. Graham Ruby announce that the naked mole rat is a “non-aging mammal.” Axolotl genome sequenced, revealing regeneration genes If you lose an arm or a leg, there's a whole range of advanced prosthetics to give you some functionality back. But we might not need any artificial help in the long run if research into limb regeneration bears fruit. Scientists have now sequenced the genome of the Mexican axolotl, and have identified a few key genes hidden amongst its extremely complex genetic blueprint. WT 397-709 Eternity Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

Friday Grab Bag Jan 27, 2018

Future news from a variety of angles. What ties them together? You decide. Scientists reverse genetic aging, memory decline in rats They injected rats with viral vectors that expressed FKBP1b, causing a rise in overall expression of the protein. Both long- and short-term treatment improved the performance of aging rats in a water maze task: FKBP1b was able to prevent cognitive decline in long-term rats and reverse it in short-term rats. China’s 30 story tall air cleaning tower is a successful test for many 150 story air cleaning towers China has created an experimental air purifying tower that is over 100 meters (328 feet) tall in northern China. It reduces 2.5 micron air pollution by about 15% over a 10 square kilometer area. Elon Musk: “The Singularity for This Level of the Simulation Is Coming Soon” The singularity for this level of the simulation is coming soon. I wonder what the levels above us look like. Good chance they are less interesting and deeper levels are better. So far, even our primitive sims are often more entertaining than reality itself. — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 5, 2017 GEEKOUT Furrion Exo-Bionics goo.gl/tucTDH New Season of X-Files New Amazon Series: Philip K. Dick's Electric Dreams Baby Driver is brilliant artsy stylish action-packed fun WT 396-708

It's Happening Jan 23, 2018

Phil and Stephen discuss a number of future developments that they have been predicting for years that now appear to be coming true. Biotech boss backing gene therapy to solve ageing crisis seeks injection of urgency, but scientists preach patience Alibaba and Microsoft AI beat humans in Stanford reading test This Neural Network Built by Japanese Researchers Can ‘Read Minds’ Cure for cancer happening (Or maybe it’s not happening -- update on computer program that can tell if you’re gay.) Do algorithms reveal sexual orientation or just expose our stereotypes? WT 394-706 Photo by Jonatan Pie on Unsplash

Weird Tubes on Mars! (And Other Stuff) Jan 20, 2018

Okay, so maybe there is nothing to the recent observation that a Pathfinder photo of a Martian rock has strange tube-like structures that could be fossils. But one of these days, one of these stories about life in the universe is going to be right. And then everybody who DIDN’T get all excited is going to feel pretty silly, aren’t they? Plus lots of other stories and GEEKOUT. News stories discussed: Incredible 'Hypatia' Stone Contains Compounds Not Found in the Solar System You’re Descended from Royalty and So Is Everybody Else Curiosity Rover Spots Weird Tube-Like Structures on Mars The World Needs More Scientists: How We Can Train Millions in Virtual Labs A crowdfunding platform aims to solve the puzzle of aging The First Mind-Controlled VR Game Will Hit Arcades in 2018 Pulse 47: CRISPR Made Spectacular Advances in 2017, More to Come in 2018 GEEKOUT: NAD+ update. Also: Engadget’s picture of a 50 qubit quantum computer looks steampunk awesome: https://goo.gl/zDKKUS WT 393-705

Are Things Getting Worse? Jan 16, 2018

Phil and Stephen discuss evidence that things might not be improving as quickly as we would like. And why we might tend to see things as getting worse even if that's not the case. The Toxoplasma of Rage Alibaba's Jack Ma Expects the World to Experience Decades of 'Pain' “In the next 30 years, the world’s pain will be much greater than its happiness,” Ma told a Chinese entrepreneurial conference over the weekend. “Social conflicts over the next 30 years will hugely impact every industry.” The somersault changes the Internet brings will create millions of jobs, as Alibaba has, Ma told the entrepreneur conference this weekend, but only if changes are made to the world’s education systems. Ma said that policies on artificial intelligence should work to mitigate the job losses that longer lifespans and better-equipped robots will produce. A swarm of home-made drones has bombed a Russian airbase Are things getting worse? What do you really think we're going to say? WT 391-703

Cities with Force Fields (and Other Predictions) Jan 13, 2018

Phil, Stephen, and special guest Thomas Frey conclude their 3-part celebration of the 700th edition of the World Transformed. (Here's Part 1. Here's Part 2.) In Part 3, Phil, Stephen, and Thomas make predictions covering the next 200 years. Will cities be protected by force fields? Will new human varieties emerge -- genderless, merged with animals, or otherwise significantly modified? Will we travel to the stars in a soda can? Will we ultimately merge with AIs or aliens? Join us. About our guest: Over the past decade, Thomas Frey has built an enormous following around the world based on his ability to develop accurate visions of the future and describe the opportunities ahead. His keynote talks on futurist topics have captivated people ranging from high level government officials to executives in Fortune 500 companies including NASA, IBM, AT&T, Hewlett-Packard, Lucent Technologies, Boeing, Capital One, Ford Motor Company, many others. Because of his work inspiring inventors and other revolutionary thinkers, the Boulder Daily Camera has referred to him as the “Father of Invention”. The Denver Post and Seattle Post Intelligencer have referred to him as the “Dean of Futurists”. He has been featured in thousands of articles for both national and international publications including New York Times, Huffington Post, Times of India, USA Today, US News and World Report, Popular Science, and many more. He currently writes a weekly “Future Trend Report” newsletter and a weekly column for FuturistSpeaker.com. WT 390-702

The Death of Banks (and Other Predictions) Jan 11, 2018

Phil, Stephen, and special guest Thomas Frey continue their 3-part celebration of the 700th edition of the World Transformed. (Here's Part 1.) In part 2, the guys discuss predictions for the next 20 years. Are banks going to disappear? Will AI be the primary tool that humanity uses to solve problems? Will a robot be your best friend? Will (some) people soon have dorsal fins? Join us. About our guest: Over the past decade, Thomas Frey has built an enormous following around the world based on his ability to develop accurate visions of the future and describe the opportunities ahead. His keynote talks on futurist topics have captivated people ranging from high level government officials to executives in Fortune 500 companies including NASA, IBM, AT&T, Hewlett-Packard, Lucent Technologies, Boeing, Capital One, Ford Motor Company, many others. Because of his work inspiring inventors and other revolutionary thinkers, the Boulder Daily Camera has referred to him as the “Father of Invention”. The Denver Post and Seattle Post Intelligencer have referred to him as the “Dean of Futurists”. He has been featured in thousands of articles for both national and international publications including New York Times, Huffington Post, Times of India, USA Today, US News and World Report, Popular Science, and many more. He currently writes a weekly “Future Trend Report” newsletter and a weekly column for FuturistSpeaker.com. WT 389-701

2017 The Year In Geek Jan 05, 2018

Phil and Stephen review a year’s worth of geekouts to compile their ultimate list of geeky goodness from the year 2017. Topics discussed include: Game of Thrones Season 7 Blade Runner 2049 All These Worlds Ready Player One Spider-Man Homecoming Thor Ragnarok Wonder Woman Justice League Logan Planet of the Apes Star Wars: the Last Jedi Plus lots of other stuff. (Because you can’t talk about this stuff without mentioning lots of other stuff. That’s how being a geek works.) WT 387-699

FastForward -- The Elephant in the Brain Jan 03, 2018

Why do we do the things we do? We like to think we have good reasons for the choices we make, but we may very well be fooling ourselves. In their intriguing new book, The Elephant in the Brain: Hidden Motives in Everyday Life, authors Robin Hanson and Kevin Simler explain how hardwired primate behavior, social norms, and evolution combine to obscure our motives...even (or maybe especially) from ourselves. While it’s easy to see how hiding our motives from others might bring about certain advantages, it’s harder to imagine why we would ever try to hide our reasons from ourselves. But Hanson argues that it’s no great mystery. "We prefer to attribute our behavior to the highest-minded motives,” he explains. “But often our behavior is better explained by less high-minded motives -- i.e., more selfish motives -- and we'd rather not look at that and acknowledge it." About Our Guest Robin Hanson is an associate professor of economics at George Mason University and a research associate at the Future of Humanity Institute of Oxford University. He has a doctorate in social science, master's degrees in physics and philosophy, and nine years of experience as a research programmer in artificial intelligence and Bayesian statistics. With over 3600 citations and sixty academic publications, he's recognized not only for his contributions to economics, but also for the wide range of fields in which he's been published. His amazing blog OvercomingBias.com has had some eight million visits. He is the author of The Age of Em: Work, Love, and Life when Robots Rule the Earth. He blogs at Overcoming Bias. Music: www.bensound.com FF 003-698

Infinite Possibilities Dec 29, 2017

The World Transformed is all about possibilities: amazing new possibilities that are being realized daily, frightening possibilities that we have to work to avoid, and tantalizing possibilities shimmering on the horizon that speak to a future beyond our wildest dreams. In the conclusion of our four-part series (here's part one goo.gl/m3tiu9; here's part 2 https://goo.gl/Xbx9EC; here's part 3 https://goo.gl/RjYuNg), Stephen reviews the possibilities contained in four of his favorite shows from the second half of the year. 2017 podcasts referenced include: Emergent Magic: Why Ideas Are Becoming More Valuable https://goo.gl/3yhxy Self-Driving Cars: a Stranger Future than You Think https://goo.gl/axYMzc PJ Manney and (ID)entity https://goo.gl/MNWiHk Realizing Possibilities…Fast! (PS: Specialization Is for Insects) https://goo.gl/WuHBYy WT 386-697

Is This as Good as It Gets? Dec 27, 2017

Not by a long shot. First off, there are major positive changes taking place that are getting only a tiny fraction of the attention they deserve. And then there is more good stuff to come. In part three of a four-part series (here's part one; here's part 2), Phil reviews some of the positive developments in the second half of the year that speak to very bright future to come. 2017 podcasts referenced include: Checking in on the Future Wow. History-Making News Future Wealth: Universal Basic Income and Alternatives The Amazing Wealth Machine WT 385-696

A Whole Big Bag of Good News Dec 22, 2017

What kinds of things do we discuss on The World Transformed? Sending cars into orbit, curing horrible diseases, why kids are from a different planet, communists in space, super-antibiotics, machines that suck carbon from the air, lightsail-powered interstellar spacecraft, and why we should all be more optimistic. To name just a few topics! In part two of a four-part series (here's part one), Stephen outlines some of the positive developments in the first half of the year that speak to very bright future to come. 2017 podcasts referenced include: Getting Closer to the Final Frontier: On to Mars and the Stars The Golden Age: Why Don’t We See It? Engines of Disruption: How Data Is Changing Everything A Cure for Multiple Sclerosis? WT 384-695

The Year That Was Almost Magic Dec 20, 2017

There was a lot of talk about what a strange year 2016 was, and now some are claiming that 2017 was even weirder. Phil and Stephen beg to differ. 2017 was an amazing year. Dare we say it? Almost magical. In part one of a four-part series, Phil outlines some of the positive developments in the first half of the year that speak to very bright future to come. 2017 podcasts referenced include: World Transformed Book Update True Stories: News Not Dated April 1st Ancient Martian Fossils, Self-Growing Computers, and Flowers that Cure Cancer Barely Distinguishable from Magic WT 383-694

We’re (Once Again) Not Saying It’s Aliens...Plus Really Old Shark! Dec 16, 2017

Phil and Stephen discuss a variety of future-facing new stories, starting with the big one: NASA has once again not discovered aliens. NASA ANNOUNCEMENT: First solar system like ours with eight planets discovered NASA today announced it has found another solar system just like ours with EIGHT planets... boosting the chances of finding ALIEN life elsewhere in the Universe. NASA says the new discovery has been made by researchers using machine learning from Google, which is an approach to artificial intelligence, and demonstrates new ways of analysing Kepler data. Bitcoin mining 'is using so much energy that it is causing electricity blackouts' amid fears it will consume more power than the world by 2020 The virtual mining of Bitcoins is using up so much energy that it is causing electricity blackouts in some countries, it has been revealed. Experts say the high-tech activity is consuming a higher level of power than in 159 countries across the globe - amid fears it will use more than the world by 2020. This Shark Could Be Oldest Living Vertebrate At 512 Danish scientists believe they've discovered the oldest living vertebrate: A Greenland shark lurking in the frigid North Atlantic and Arctic waters that could be 512 years old, according to the journal Science. Here's why your attitude is more important than your intelligence GEEKOUT! Day-late predictions and wish list for Star Wars: the Last Jedi WT 382-693

Get Used to It: Robots Are Smarter than Us Dec 14, 2017

Has machine intelligence overtaken human intelligence, or will it do so shortly? Phil and Stephen examine recent news stories that may provide some answers. Insurance Companies Are Now Offering Discounts if You Let Your Tesla Drive Itself Britain’s largest automobile insurance company, Direct Line, has announced a 5 percent discount for customers who activate Autopilot functionality in their Tesla. It follows in the footsteps of Root, a startup that offers a similar promotion across nine states in the US. DeepMind AI needs mere 4 hours of self-training to become a chess overlord Evolved now to AlphaZero, this latest iteration started from scratch and bested the program that beat the human Go champions after just eight hours of self-training. And when AlphaZero instead decided to teach itself chess, the AI defeated the current world-champion chess program, Stockfish, after a mere four hours of self-training. (For fun, AlphaZero also took two hours to learn shogi—"a Japanese version of chess that’s played on a bigger board," according to The Verge—and then defeated one of the best bots around.) AI will obliterate half of all jobs, starting with white collar, says ex-Google China president Everyone needs to rethink the practical and social impact of fewer jobs in the future, Kai-Fu Lee says. The chairman and CEO of Sinovation Ventures believes about half of all jobs will disappear over the next decade. True Artificial Intelligence will change everything Eventually AIs will set their own goals and become much smarter than we are WT 381-692

AI in Medicine Dec 12, 2017

Phil and Stephen review a series of articles from MIT Technology Review goo.gl/kspwkz showcasing progress in artificial-intelligence driven medicine Can AI Keep You Healthy? ICX wants to capture more data about your body than has ever before been possible. It starts with your DNA sequence and includes data from Fitbit-style wearables that measure your steps, heart rate, and sleep patterns. The Artificially Intelligent Doctor Will Hear You Now U.K.-based startup Babylon will launch an app later this year that will listen to your symptoms and provide medical advice. Will it help or hinder the health-care system? Treating Addiction with an App Using smartphone data and artificial intelligence to track and interpret behavior, a Chicago startup is attempting something extraordinary: predicting and preventing relapse into drug use. Stopping Breast Cancer with Help from AI In an effort to find targeted treatments for particularly invasive types of breast cancer that don’t respond well to existing drugs, the Department of Defense announced this week that it is enlisting the biopharma company Berg Health to use AI for drug discovery. The Recipe for the Perfect Robot Surgeon One of Verb’s priorities is to use artificial intelligence to help surgeons interpret what they see inside a patient. WT 380-691

Realizing Possibilities...Fast! (PS: Specialization Is for Insects) Dec 09, 2017

We live in an age of acceleration. But it’s primarily the technology that’s going faster, right? Humans are still just humans. There is no Moore’s Law making us incredibly more powerful and efficient. Is there? M2M Day 1: Completing 12 ridiculously hard challenges in 12 months Here’s the list of challenges: November: Memorize the order of a deck of cards in less than 2 minutesDecember: Draw a realistic self-portraitJanuary: Solve a Rubik’s Cube in under 20 secondsFebruary: Land a standing backflipMarch: Play a 5-minute improvisational blues guitar soloApril: Hold a 30-minute conversation in Hebrew on the future of techMay: Build a self-driving carJune: Develop perfect pitch — identify 20 random musical notes in a rowJuly: Finish a Saturday NYT crossword puzzle in one sittingAugust: Complete one continuous set of 40 pull-upsSeptember: Continuously freestyle rap for 3 minutesOctober: Defeat world-champion Magnus Carlsen at a game of chess A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects. -Robert A. Heinlein GEEKOUT Geekzone https://www.youtube.com/user/kscerri WT 379-690

Happy Accidents and Unintended (Amazing) Consequences Dec 07, 2017

Phil and Stephen dip into the archives to discuss the strange ways in which progress doesn’t always occur on purpose. Where do solutions come from? Careful planning. Intentional behavior. Hard work. Or sometimes we just stumble into them. Cure for cancer might accidentally have been found, and it could be malaria By attaching malaria proteins to cancer cells, tumours could be burrowed into and then destroyed — and it seems to be effective on 90 per cent of types of cancers Can a Diabetes Drug Cure Aging? A 2014 study found that people with Type 2 diabetes who took metformin lived longer than healthy people without diabetes who weren't taking it. 10 Awesome Accidental Discoveries Penicillin The Microwave Oven Velcro The Big Bang Teflon Vulcanized Rubber Coca-Cola Radioactivity Smart Dust 'Genius is one percent inspiration, ninety-nine percent perspiration ... Thomas A Edison Artificial intelligence will plunge into the universe of molecules in the search for amazing drugs “There are two strategies of innovation on the basis of the AI in the pharmaceutical industry, which will provide you the best molecules and the rapid approval,” says lark. “One is looking for the needle in the haystack, and the other creates a new needle”. WT 378-689

What Happens When We Conquer Aging? Dec 05, 2017

Phil and Stephen discuss some of the broader social implications associated with ending aging. Aging Expert: The First Person to Live to 1,000 Has Already Been Born According to the United Nations, the population of those aged 60 and older is expected to more than double by 2050 — increasing from 962 million globally in 2017 to 2.1 billion in 2050. If or when humanity determines how to reject aging, de Grey foresees the development of rejuvenation clinics that will address seven issues related to aging: tissue atrophy, cancerous cells, mitochondrial mutations, death-resistant cells, extracellular matrix stiffening, extracellular aggregates, and intracellular aggregates. The above story drew the following comment on Facebook: If that’s the case, then we are going to have to implement a one child policy or things are going to get out of hand. Will we? What can we expect to change / has to change when people live to be 1,000? How long before treatments for aging are a big factor in population?Will we face a population explosion?How long will there be two populations: one that ages normally and one that doesn’t age?What factors might offset the explosion?Education / Career / Marriage / Family -- What will be the right age to start each of these in a world without aging?What should the population of the planet be?What should the population of the solar system be? WT 377-688

Space Bacteria, 400-Year Battery, Tiny Robots, Drug-Sleuthing AI Dec 02, 2017

It's a Friday World Transformed, complete with aliens and GEEKOUT. Cosmonaut says space station bacteria 'come from outer space' The bacteria turned up after swabbing of the space station's exterior. The question is, how did they get there? Student Invents A Phone Battery That Lasts 400 Years Back in April, Thai was messing around in the lab and coated a gold nanowire in a manganese dioxide shell, then once again in an electrolyte made of a Plexiglas-like gel. “The coated electrode holds its shape much better, making it a more reliable option... Tiny robot designed to fight cancer could be inserted into human body Scientists have developed tiny, remote-controlled “microrobots” with the ability to release cancer-targeting drugs, which they hope will one day be used to diagnose disease and administer drugs inside the human body. Artificial intelligence will plunge into the universe of molecules in the search for amazing drugs In our galaxy, they are 100 to 400 billion galaxies in the Universe, and even more. Out in the night sky not as many stars. However, even this number gives us a deep story… of drugs and medicines. GEEKOUT Coco, new Pixar movie Justice League WT 376-687

The Amazing Wealth Machine Nov 30, 2017

How much is that smartphone really worth? Phil and Stephen discuss multiple analyses. Everything from 1991 Radio Shack ad I now do with my phone We’ll get to those someday, but today, something much simpler. The back page of the front section on Saturday, February 16, 1991 was 4/5ths covered with a Radio Shack ad. There are 15 electronic gizmo type items on this page, being sold from America’s Technology Store. 13 of the 15 you now always have in your pocket. How much would an iPhone have cost in 1991? Innovation blindness, I’ve long argued, is a key obstacle to sound economic and policy thinking. And this is a perfect example. When we make policy based on today’s technology, we don’t just operate mildly sub-optimally. No, we often close off entire pathways to amazing innovation. The iPhone in Your Pocket Is Worth Millions My iPhone 7 has 128 gigabytes (GB) of flash memory, which would have cost around $5.76 million back in 1991. Do “They” Really Say “Technological Progress Is Slowing Down?” Consider the 256 GB memory iPhone X: Implemented in vacuum tubes in 1957, the transistors in an iPhoneX alone would have: cost 150 trillion of today's dollars: one and a half times today's global annual producttaken up a hundred-story square building 300 meters high, and 3 kilometers long and widedrawn 150 terawatts of power—30 times the world's current generating capacity WT 375-686

Robot Apocalypse, Dorky Headsets, Mechanical Hands, and Super Spiders Nov 28, 2017

How to Survive a Robot Apocalypse: Just Close the Door Robots may enslave us all someday. In the meantime, if one of them goes berserk, here’s a useful tactic: Shut the door behind you. But then again, some progress has been made since 2015. The Inevitability Of Augmented Reality HMDs We are constantly shifting between the world in our hands and the physical world. Tens of thousands of people die every year because of this incredibly bad form factor, and the need to change it is urgent. Spider drinks graphene, spins web that can hold the weight of a human For the study, Nicola Pugno and team at the University of Trento in Italy added graphene and carbon nanotubes to a spider's drinking water. The materials were naturally incorporated into the spider's silk, producing webbing that is five times stronger than normal. That puts it on par with pure carbon fibers in strength, as well as with Kevlar, the material bulletproof vests are made from. High-tech neuroprosthetic ‘Luke’ arm lets amputee touch and feel again “When I went to grab something, I could feel myself grabbing it. When I thought about moving this or that finger, it would move almost right away,” Keven Walgamott said. “I don’t know how to describe it except that it was like I had a hand again.” Plus -- was it an alien spacecraft? (Timothy Gordon says yes!) WT 374-685

Rebuilding Bodies, Alien Flyby, and the Dawn of the Age of Imagination Nov 25, 2017

Phil and Stephen conclude their special Thanksgiving week series. Good-news-a-palooza wraps up with a Black Friday show presenting still more tremendously encouraging news that is breaking all around us. Once again, aliens are mentioned right in the title of the show! And once again, it's a no Buzzkill Zone. Heart failure could be treated using umbilical cord stem cells goo.gl/eB9imT Using stem cells derived from the umbilical cord, researchers have improved the heart muscle and function of heart failure patients, paving the way for noninvasive therapies. Last of the Iron Lungs goo.gl/Pwv9ek Hours, days, and years sealed within a machine forcing breath into your lungs. This is life for people born before the polio vaccine. Deep Learning is Eating Software goo.gl/P6HzAm The pattern is that there’s an existing software project doing data processing using explicit programming logic, and the team charged with maintaining it find they can replace it with a deep-learning-based solution. How Technology Is Leading Us Into the Imagination Age goo.gl/s63h9N Initially coined by Rita J. King, the imagination age is a theoretical period beyond the information age where creativity and imagination will become the primary creators of economic value. An Organism That Regenerates Could Allow Us to Heal Humans goo.gl/9Yg4K5 The gecko’s remarkable ability to regenerate its tail in the space of a month could help scientists figure out how to heal spine injuries in humans, and it’s all down to the regenerative ability of stem cells. GEEKOUT Oumuamua = Alien Spacecraft? goo.gl/XUBsND Time for Stephen to adopt the Giorgio A. Tsoukalos haircut? goo.gl/Unh6ur WT 373-684

Fusion, Space on the Cheap, and Becoming Aquaman Nov 21, 2017

Phil and Stephen kick off a special series of shows for Thanksgiving week. We’re calling it the good-news-a-palooza. Monday, Wednesday, and Friday of this week the World Transformed will be a No Buzzkill Zone as we explore tremendously encouraging news that is breaking all around us. Scientists Invent Oxygen Particle That If Injected, Allows You To Live Without Breathing A team of scientists at the Boston Children’s Hospital have invented what is being considered one the greatest medical breakthroughs in recent years. They have designed a microparticle that can be injected into a person’s bloodstream that can quickly oxygenate their blood. This will even work if the ability to breathe has been restricted, or even cut off entirely. Study Finds SpaceX Investment Saved NASA Hundreds of Millions Zapata estimates that SpaceX launches cost NASA around $89,000 per kilogram of cargo delivered to the space station. There's no telling what precisely would have come from a cargo spacecraft developed by NASA, but Zapata estimates that it would be $272,000 per kg. In less than a day LPP Fusion Fund Raising at $147,000+ LPP Fusion is trying to make a 5 megawatt dense plasma focus fusion generators. Their current WeFunder crowdfunding equity is going well with over $147,000 raised toward a fund raising goal of $1 million. WT 371-682

Blade Runner 2049 and the Hard Problem of Reality Nov 18, 2017

Denis Villeneuve’s critically acclaimed sequel to the 1982 Ridley Scott Classic is officially a box-office disaster. goo.gl/HcF9NY (Apparently you have to rake in a half a billion these days for a big movie to be considered a success.) But don't worry. That won't slow us down in spending a full GEEKOUT episode of the World Transformed exploring the many dimension of this bleak and fascinating vision of the future. Listeners beware: this one is all spoilers all the time. We also spend some time reflecting on the original Blade Runner goo.gl/iZv4zY , and on War for the Planet of the Apeshttps://goo.gl/DuXYZS. Plus we throw in a mini-review of Thor Ragnarok goo.gl/mk8eBi. Join us. WT 370-681

Quark Fusion, Spinach Hearts, and Back to the Moon Nov 16, 2017

Phil and Stephen reflect on recent news items that give a hint as to how amazing the future is going to be. “Quark Fusion” Produces Eight Times More Energy Than Nuclear Fusion Researchers, building on findings from work involving the Large Hadron Collider, have found a theoretical new form of energy. This new, renewable option is more powerful than nuclear by fusing quarks into baryons. A robot can print this $32,000 house in as little as 8 hours — take a look inside A new Ukrainian homebuilding startup called PassivDom uses a 3D printing robot that can print parts for tiny houses. The machine can print the walls, roof, and floor of PassivDom's 380-square-foot model in about eight hours. The windows, doors, plumbing, and electrical systems are then added by a human worker. A Dying Boy Gets a New, Gene-Corrected Skin In June 2015, Hassan was admitted to the burn unit of a children’s hospital in Bochum, Germany. By that time, around 60 percent of his epidermis—the top layer of his skin—was gone. The pain was excruciating. “Why do I have to live this life?” he asked his father. Spinach Leaf Transformed Into Beating Human Heart Tissue Scientists have found a way to use spinach to build working human heart muscle, potentially solving a long-standing problem in efforts to repair damaged organs. NASA Orion Spacecraft That Will Bring Humans to Mars Will Undergo Moon Test Mission in 2019 NASA is planning to take humans back to the Moon—something that has not been done since 1972.

Reality Sandwich Nov 14, 2017

Phil and Stephen discuss the Hard Problem of Reality. Our notion of what’s real is increasingly being challenged by new technologies like AR (augmented reality) and VR (virtual reality) as well as algorithm-driven social sites that serve up ever-more extreme content just to keep us clicking along. Are these technologies diving us farther away from each other and from what is really real? Of course, it’s possible that the new reality technologies are insignificant compared to the longstanding human ability to delude ourselves (and others) about what is real. But what happens when that well-established capacity for delusion meets these powerful new technologies? Here are some recent news items that speak to that eventual convergence. Report: Apple AR Headset Coming In 2020 With Brand New OS We’re Building a Dystopia Just to Make People Click on Ads Billionaire ex-Facebook president Sean Parker unloads on Mark Zuckerberg and admits he helped build a monster Teen Girl Posed For 8 Years As Married Man To Write About Baseball And Harass Women Why Total Immersion Is Virtual Reality's Future WT 368-679

Foresight Visions Part 2 — Longevity, Blockchains, and Cybersecurity Nov 11, 2017

Phil, Stephen, and PJ welcome Christine Peterson and Allison Duettmann for a two-part discussion on what's new with the Foresight Institute and what's going to be happening at the upcoming Foresight Vision Weekend December 2-3. What Is the Vision Weekend? A member-gathering dedicated to taking stock of the most compelling ideas of today, turn them into coherent visions for a better future and get to work on them. Keynote panels will explore: Longevity: Reaching Escape Velocity Blockchains: Master Key To Unlock The Future? Intelligence: The Brain As Next Frontier? The Long-Term: So Much To Do, So Little Time In part two of our discussion, we discuss: Innovative ways to assess longevity Blockchain technologies beyond the crypto-currency hype Blockchain risks and opportunities SPECIAL OFFER: World Transformed listeners can get a 50% discount off the ticket price for the Vision Weekend (which also requires membership in the Foresight Institute -- you can join when you buy your ticket.) Just use the discount code transformed. About Our Guests: Christine Peterson writes, lectures, and briefs the media on world transforming technologies. She is the Co-Founder and former President of Foresight Institute, the leading nanotech public interest group. Allison Duettmann is the chair of the Foresight Institute’s Vision weekend. She also conducts research, authors reports, and hosts the invitational technical workshops and public events. WT 366-677

Foresight Visions, Part 1 -- Existential Hope Nov 09, 2017

Phil, Stephen, and PJ welcome Christine Peterson and Allison Duettmann for a two-part discussion on what's new with the Foresight Institute and what's going to be happening at the upcoming Foresight Vision Weekend December 2-3. What Is the Vision Weekend? A member-gathering dedicated to taking stock of the most compelling ideas of today, turn them into coherent visions for a better future and get to work on them. Keynote panels will explore: Longevity: Reaching Escape Velocity Blockchains: Master Key To Unlock The Future? Intelligence: The Brain As Next Frontier? The Long-Term: So Much To Do, So Little Time In part one of our discussion, Allison explains why Existential Hope will be a major theme for the Vision Weekend. Plus Christine, Phil, and PJ reflect on the imact of past Foresight vision events SPECIAL OFFER: World Transformed listeners can get a 50% discount off the ticket price for the Vision Weekend (which also requires membership in the Foresight Institute -- you can join when you buy your ticket.) Just use the discount code transformed. About Our Guests: Christine Peterson writes, lectures, and briefs the media on world transforming technologies. She is the Co-Founder and former President of Foresight Institute, the leading nanotech public interest group. Allison Duettmann is the chair of the Foresight Institute’s Vision weekend. She also conducts research, authors reports, and hosts the invitational technical workshops and public events. WT 366-677

Fast Forward -- The Nanotech Debate Is Over Nov 07, 2017

In this edition of Fast Forward, Christine Peterson, co-founder of the Foresight Institute, talks with our hosts Phil Bowermaster and Stephen Gordon about her ongoing work exploring and educating the public about coming powerful technologies, including nanotechnology and related technologies. Are we witnessing the dawn of a new industrial revolution? If so, how will it impact the economy, the environment, and our day-to-day lives? Topics Defining nanotechnologyThe end of the nanotechnology debateA new industrial revolution?Nanotechnology and space explorationNanotechnology and medicineThe relationship between nanotechnology, open source software, and artificial intelligenceThe Foresight Institute Vision Weekend About our guest Christine writes, lectures, and briefs the media on world transforming technologies. She is the Co-Founder and former President of Foresight Institute, the leading nanotech public interest group. Foresight educates the public, technical community, and policymakers on nanotechnology and its long-term effects. She serves on the Advisory Board of the Machine Intelligence Research Institute, and has served on California's Blue Ribbon Task Force on Nanotechnology and the Editorial Advisory Board of NASA's Nanotech Briefs. She has directed numerous Foresight Conferences on Molecular Nanotechnology, organized Foresight Institute Feynman Prizes, and chaired Foresight Vision Weekends. Learn more About the Foresight Institute About the Foresight Vision Weekend Music: www.bensound.com FF 002-676

Visitors and Messages from the Stars Nov 03, 2017

Phil and Stephen discuss remarkable recent discoveries related to space. Citizen scientist spots comet tails streaking past distant star Citizen scientist Thomas Jacobs was the first to spot tell-tale signs that a comet was orbiting a distant star monitored by the Kepler Space Observatory. Professor Saul Rappaport (Massachusetts Institute of Technology; MIT) and his team then collaborated with Jacobs to report the discovery in new research published in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. Mysterious object from deep space has entered the solar system Most objects orbiting our Sun do so along a common plane: the planets, dwarf planets and asteroids mostly swing around in roughly the same way. This one appears to have come down on the plane from 122 degrees, from the direction of the star Vega, in the constellation Lyra. And its path did not indicate the curved ellipse typical of clockwork-like returning comets. Reports of spectacular UFO - a giant glowing ball lighting the sky - in Siberia Strange messages coming from the stars are ‘probably’ from aliens, scientists say What Lies Beyond The Edge Of The Observable Universe? GEEKOUT Stranger Things (seasons 1&2) WT 365-675

IQ 10,000 Nov 01, 2017

Following up on Monday’s show, Phil and Stephen explore the possibilities embedded in this recent prediction: Billionaire CEO of SoftBank: Robots will have an IQ of 10,000 in 30 years In about 30 years, artificial intelligence will have an IQ of 10,000, Son says. By comparison, the average human IQ is 100 and genius is 200, according to Son. Mensa, "the High IQ society," starts accepting members with an IQ score of 130. Assuming the average person has an IQ of 100, Masayoshi Son is predicting that computers will be 100 times smarter than we are. What will we do with that kind of mental capability (assuming we’re still calling the shots?) Phil and Stephen discuss some problems that might benefit from 100X human intelligence: Anti-aging medicine This kind of thing: To Stay Young, Kill Zombie Cells An anti-aging strategy that works in mice is about to be tested in humansWorld hunger 20 years ago, 1 billion hungry people Today, 1 billion hungry people Lots of glib “solutions,” but the problem persists Do we need some smarter thinking Getting to true atomically precise manufacturing The transition from an employment economy to a post-scarcity Or maybe just plain making everybody rich? Flying cars Or is this all ultimately a dystopian idea? Join us. And leave a comment -- what problem would you put 100X human intelligence on? WT 365-675

Citizen Robot Oct 31, 2017

Phil and Stephen review recent developments related to robotics and artificial intelligence. Meet the first-ever robot citizen — a humanoid named Sophia that once said it would 'destroy humans' Sophia the robot might not have a heart or brain, but it does have Saudi Arabian citizenship. As of October 25, Sophia is the first robot in history to be a full citizen of a country. If we had general intelligence at the level of a rat then the Singularity would be very near If we had a general intelligence with the capabilities of a rat then it would three times beyond the goals of the European Human Brain Project with its mouse models and would be a matter of scaling the neurons and the solution by 400 times. Peter Diamandis Thinks We’re Evolving Toward “Meta-Intelligence” The story, in a nutshell, is this—early prokaryotic life appears about 3.5 billion years ago (bya), representing perhaps a symbiosis of separate metabolic and replicative mechanisms of “life;” at 2.5 bya, eukaryotes emerge as composite organisms incorporating biological “technology” (other living things) within themselves; Billionaire CEO of SoftBank: Robots will have an IQ of 10,000 in 30 years In about 30 years, artificial intelligence will have an IQ of 10,000, Son says. By comparison, the average human IQ is 100 and genius is 200, according to Son. Mensa, "the High IQ society," starts accepting members with an IQ score of 130. WT 364-674

Better than You Think? Part 3: Environment, Energy, and Food Oct 27, 2017

Why the World Is (Still) Better Than You Think—New Evidence For Abundance Update Polio to be eradicated this year! Environment the global annual death rate from natural disasters has plummeted over the past centuryFaster, cheaper, easier, and more accurate tracking of animals via dronesFighting deforestation via drones and machine learning Our example The Billion Oyster Project Energy more people around the world have access to electricity than ever, and the absolute number of those without access to electricity is dropping (despite population growth).India has gone from 45 percent access to electricity in 1990 to nearly 80 percent in 2014Afghanistan [went] from 0.16 percent of the population in 2000 to 89.5 percent of the population in 2014. Our Examples Basic Power Alternative Energy and the Future Food Globally, 18.6 percent of the population was undernourished in 1991; by 2015, it dropped to 10.8 percent.Human-Free FarmsFood From Electricity Our Example Child and teen obesity rates soar globally, WHO reports Bonus IBM scientists say radical new ‘in-memory’ computing architecture will speed up computers by 200 times GEEK OUT! WT 363-673

Better Than You Think, Part 2: Healthcare Oct 25, 2017

Continuing their discussion of unexpected and often unnoticed positive change, Phil and Stephen, discuss recent encouraging developments related to health care. The starting point for this series is a recent article by Peter Diamandis: Why the World Is (Still) Better Than You Think—New Evidence For Abundance https://goo.gl/RDa98R 2. Health No matter where in the world you are, mortality rates have dropped precipitously over the last 300 years. The following chart shows life expectancy at birth in various countries. Just 100 years ago, a child born in India or South Korea was only expected to live to 23. Fast forward to today, and India’s life expectancy has tripled. South Korea’s life expectancy has quadrupled and is now higher than in the UK. Peter’s examples: Plummeting Teen Births Exponential Tech Impact on Health: RoboticsVirtual RealityCRISPR/Gene Editing Our Examples: Anti-Aging Gets Real The Hackable Human: Frontiers of Human Augmentation DIY Gene Editing and Other Health News WT 362-672

Better Than You Think, Part 1: The Global Economy Oct 23, 2017

Phil and Stephen review positive economic change, beginning with a new essay by Peter Diamandis: Why the World Is (Still) Better Than You Think—New Evidence For Abundance. 1. Global Economy The first area to explore is our global economy. Over the last 200 years, the world’s GDP has skyrocketed 100-fold. Humankind has never been more prosperous and productive. Peter’s examples: Banking the Unbanked (Universal Basic Banking?) Blockchain and Government Our Examples: Ending Poverty: Multiple Approaches goo.gl/kRgjwX Future Wealth: Universal Basic Income and Alternatives goo.gl/dE3A7H WT 361-671

DIY Gene Editing and Other Health News Oct 20, 2017

After 15 Years in a Vegetative State, Nerve Stimulation Restores Consciousness Scientists Have Discovered a Drug That Fixes Cavities and Regrows Teeth This Rare Medical Condition Makes You Love Everyone Child and teen obesity rates soar globally, WHO reports Human Myostatin Knock-Out Targeting CRISPR-Cas9 Plasmid This plasmid expresses Cas9 and a gRNA targeting exon 1 of the human myostatin gene. DIY Human CRISPR Guide This is by no means meant to be a comprehensive guide and is instead meant to show people the ease at which CRISPR-Cas9 can be used to modify the adult human genome. This Guy Says He’s The First Person To Attempt Editing His DNA With CRISPR “I want to live in a world where people get drunk and instead of giving themselves tattoos, they’re like, ‘I’m drunk, I’m going to CRISPR myself,’” said Zayner, who has a few tattoos of his own, in an interview with BuzzFeed News. “It sounds crazy, but I think that would be a pretty interesting world to live in for sure.” GEEKOUT Blade Runner 2049 vs. Thor Ragnarok WT 360-670

Computer Artists, Brain Hacks, and the Amazing Electric Bus Oct 18, 2017

Phil and Stephen review a grab-bag of news stories indicating that the future will be here sooner than we think. It’s Getting Hard to Tell If a Painting Was Made by a Computer or a Human In a randomized-controlled double-blind study, subjects were unable to distinguish the computer art from two sample sets of acclaimed work created by flesh-and blood artists (one culled from the canon of Abstract Expressionist paintings, the other from works shown at the 2016 edition of Art Basel in Hong Kong). Electric bus sets record with 1,101-mile trip on a single charge Think it was impressive when a Tesla club drove a Model S nearly 670 miles? It has nothing on what Proterra just managed. The startup just drove a Catalyst E2 Max electric bus a whopping 1,101.2 miles on a single charge. Quantum Computing Will Change Everything, and Sooner Than You Expect Inside this box could be the future of carbon capture DARPA Is Planning to Hack the Human Brain to Let Us “Upload” Skills In March 2016, DARPA — the U.S. military’s “mad science” branch — announced their Targeted Neuroplasticity Training (TNT) program. The TNT program aims to explore various safe neurostimulation methods for activating synaptic plasticity, which is the brain’s ability to alter the connecting points between neurons... WT 359-669

Fast Forward -- The Sentient Enterprise Oct 17, 2017

How can businesses stay agile and competitive in the face of massive data volumes, exponentially increasing complexity, and the growing need for real-time answers, decisions, and responses? In his new book The Sentient Enterprise, technologist and visionary Oliver Ratzesberger, along with co-author Mohanbir Sawhney, outlines a revolutionary methodology for aligning data, systems, and people within the organization to make agility and decision-making scalable commodities. In this edition of FastForward, Oliver provides an overview of this methodology and explains why a new approach is so needed for businesses today. Why “Sentient?” The core understanding the new model begins with some very simple observations. An enterprise is made up of people. Each individual within the organization is a sentient being. As humans we share in some common behaviors and tendencies: we listen; we think; we interact, we learn. These traits are critical to business success, and yet they are enormously difficult to scale. They do not transfer easily from the individual to the group. “The problem is that the more of us you put together in a company, the less we do those things,” says Oliver. In other words, an enterprise made up of hundreds or thousands of sentient beings fundamentally lacks the ability to listen, to think, and to make decisions. It is quite a paradox. Real-World Results In the podcast, Oliver cites several diverse examples of companies already achieving success with the Sentient Enterprise methodology, including Volvo, Blizzard Entertainment, and the San Francisco Giants. And he predicts that there are many more such stories to come. --- FF 001-668 Music: www.bensound.com Sponsored Content

Future Wealth: Universal Basic Income and Alternatives Oct 16, 2017

Phil and Stephen discuss variations on the idea of Universal Basic Income What is UBI? goo.gl/hz9s6D IGP's Social Prosperity Network publishes the UK's first report on Universal Basic Services goo.gl/sxAZdK Building on the ethos that saw the establishment of the NHS and public education – that essential services should be free at the point of need – the plan would “raise the floor” of basic services all citizens can expect, providing better protection for workers in the face of rapid advances in technology and automation. To fix income inequality, we need more than UBI—we need Universal Basic Assets goo.gl/CLrqh6 Assets aren’t just cars and money: They’re the primary resources that people can leverage to generate income. Ownership or access to assets—such as equity shares, certain types of land, education, and social connections—is what gives people the foundation to generate an income and therefore create more wealth. Brian Wang’s Basic Power goo.gl/9RLZE3 Universal basic infrastructure as an alternative to UBI? Post Scarcity goo.gl/3JmZr2 Post-scarcity is an economic theory in which most goods can be produced in great abundance with minimal human labor needed, so that they become available to all very cheaply or even freely. WT 358-667

Cities of the Future Oct 13, 2017

Futurist Thomas Frey joins Stephen Gordon in a discussion of the future of cities. Topics include: The technologies, social forces, and economic drivers that are transforming cities and the way we live in them. The surprising role that autonomous vehicles will play in redefining cities Why the biggest changes of all are yet to come WT 357-666

Self-Driving Cars: a Stranger Future than You Think Oct 11, 2017

(Listen to part one of our three-part series with Thomas Frey.) Futurist Thomas Frey joins Stephen Gordon in a discussion of his recent article: 25 Shocking Predictions about the Coming Driverless Car Era in the U.S. Are you ready for a future in which... ...no one owns a car ...the average lifespan of a car is a year or less ...repurposed parking lots become a real estate bonanza ...1 in 4 jobs is gone ...auto insurance companies take huge losses ...location no longer matters Join us WT 356-665

Peak Electricity: The Future of Power Oct 09, 2017

Futurist Thomas Frey joins Stephen Gordon in a discussion of issues related to the future of power. We seem to consuming less electricity than we were before. Will the trend hold up? And where will the next breakthroughs come from? Thorium nuclear reactors? Solar power from space? Discussion Topics come from Thomas Frey's Peak electricity and 17 seismic forces of change that will make you want to shift careers The Electricity Plateau Past the Peak and Falling The Economy Decouples from Electricity Who’s Using the Juice Overtaking Lane More Bang for Your Buck Seismic wildcards that will impact the future of electricity Power Generation Power Distribution Electric Storage Changes in Demand WT 355-664

The Future for Better or Worse Oct 06, 2017

Phil and Stephen add a positive spin to some otherwise gloomy future scenarios. Richard Dawkins: A.I. Might Run the World Better Than Humans Do Will A.I. take us over, and one day look back on this time period as the dawn of their civilization? Richard Dawkins posits an interesting idea, or at the very least a premise to a good science-fiction novel. Is this the best possible time to be alive? Sounds ludicrous, right? Human civilization has made immense progress — but it may well have peaked, and now we’re staring into the abyss What we didn't get Most famously, the mid-20th century was full of visions of starships, interplanetary exploration and colonization, android servitors and flying cars, planet-busting laser cannons, energy too cheap to meter. So far we don't have any of that. As Peter Thiel - one of our modern cyberpunk arch-villains - so memorably put it, "We wanted flying cars, instead we got 140 characters." GEEKOUT Hoping to bring VR to the multiplex, AMC joins Spielberg in backing Culver City startup Dreamscape Immersive, the Culver City-based company co-founded by veteran producer Walter P‎arkes and financed in part by filmmaker Steven Spielberg, has raised $20 million from AMC Entertainment, the companies announced Tuesday, along with an additional $10 million from other parties. Plus: Orville vs. new Star Trek Also: Time to get excited about Blade Runner 2049? WT 354-663

Unexpected (and Amazing) Breakthroughs Oct 04, 2017

Phil and Stephen review some truly surprising developments in science and technology. Google Brain chief: AI tops humans in computer vision, and healthcare will never be the same “In 2011 their error rate was 26 percent,” says Jeff Dean, chief of the Google Brain project, which along with other tech giants has helped lead a recent revolution in image recognition as well as speech recognition and self-driving cars. Now, he says, computers’ ability to view and analyze images (pictured) exceeds what human eyes can do. Scientists create world's first 'molecular robot' capable of building molecules Scientists at The University of Manchester have created the world's first 'molecular robot' that is capable of performing basic tasks including building other molecules. The tiny robots, which are a millionth of a millimetre in size, can be programmed to move and build molecular cargo, using a tiny robotic arm. Scientists Just Used Gene Editing to Remove a Fatal Blood Disorder From Human Embryos A team of researchers from Sun Yat-sen University have used gene editing to correct a potentially fatal blood condition. This world-first accomplishment represents the first step to a future where we literally edit disease out of our bodies. Elon Musk is aiming to land spaceships on Mars in 2022 Also see here The hard-charging tech mogul said his rocket company, SpaceX, aims to land at least two cargo ships on the Red Planet in 2022 in order to place power, mining and life support systems there for future flights. WT 353-662

Kids These Days? Social Overload Meets New Realities Oct 02, 2017

Phil and Stephen look at growing unease about the impact of social media and the ever-widening chasm between the generations. I used to think social media was a force for good. Now the evidence says I was wrong it went from being a place for crowdsourcing and sharing, during the initial wave of demonstrations against the Egyptian regime, to a fractious battleground full of “echo chambers” and “hate speech”: “The same tool that united us to topple dictators eventually tore us apart.” Ghonim saw social media polarising people into angry opposing camps – army supporters and Islamists – leaving centrists such as himself stuck in the middle, powerless. Coping With Photo Overload on Social Media Yes, you are oversharing photos. Here’s how to show your favorite moments to friends and family without alienating everyone. Cheap Sex and the Decline of Marriage Why is marriage in retreat among young Americans? Because it is now much easier for men to find sexual satisfaction outside marriage, argues Mark Regnerus A 40-year study of teens finds Generation Z is unlike any past generation — here’s what they’re all about Contrary to teenagers of past generations, Generation Z — broadly defined as people born between 1995 and the mid-2000s — aren’t drinking alcohol, having sex, driving, or going out without their parents nearly as much. WT 352-661

Don't Fear Technology Sep 29, 2017

We conclude our three-part interview with novelist and futurist PJ Manney discussing her new book, (ID)entity. Here's part 1.Here's part 2. Topics include: Why a fearful approach is the worst approach to take -- even to dangerous technologies.How the influence of Alexandre Dumas can be seen in the first two novels in the Phoenix Horizon seriesA few thoughts on the final book in the trilogy, (CON)scienceWhether one should read the books as they come out or wait and binge on the whole series Plus a very special GEEKOUT Why Wonder Woman is so damn goodWhy the TV series from the 70's is also pretty good WT 351-660

Attack of the Fembots! Sep 27, 2017

Phil and Stephen continue their discussion with bestselling author PJ Manney about her new book (ID)entity. (Listen to Part 1 here.) Topics include: Equifax and security Would anyone believe this story if it were fiction? What consideration can we expect when we are the product? What will security issues look like when we begin connecting our brains to the internet? More on how adult entertainment drives technological change. The world's first robot brothel has opened in Spain. China cracks down on rental sexbots. The coming era of robo-weapons. How the definition of "robot" is changing. How our feelings about robots are changing. Laughing at robots. Plus -- what comes after the current (R)evolution / (ID)entity / (CON)science trilogy is complete? About PJ: PJ Manney is the author of the bestselling and Philip K. Dick Award nominated (R)EVOLUTION, book 1 in the Phoenix Horizon series. She is a former chairperson of Humanity+, the author of “Empathy in the Time of Technology: How Storytelling is the Key to Empathy,” and a frequent guest host and guest on podcasts including the World Transformed. PJ is a culture vulture and SF geek, and the daughter and mother of them, too. When not contemplating the future of humanity, she is a mother, wife, and education activist in California. WT 350-659

PJ Manney and (ID)entity Sep 25, 2017

Bestselling author PJ Manney joins Phil and Stephen for part one of a three-part interview discussing her new novel (ID)entity. In the guise of political revolutionary Thomas Paine, bioengineer Peter Bernhardt brought down the corrupt and powerful Phoenix Club—and then turned revolution into evolution by becoming the first artificial human intelligence: Major Tom. In the two years since Major Tom revealed his digital existence and spread his freedom manifesto, he has been revered as a god and vilified as a demon. The United States and Europe have splintered into ideologically independent regions. Russia and China prepare to expand their empires. In the midst of the chaos, pirates attack a seastead in the Pacific Ocean, capturing one of Major Tom’s allies. A mysterious and powerful group wages a secret war. To rescue his ally, Major Tom must first regain his own humanity and somehow save a species he no longer identifies with, and which seems determined to destroy itself. About PJ: PJ Manney headPJ Manney is the author of the bestselling and Philip K. Dick Award nominated (R)EVOLUTION, book 1 in the Phoenix Horizon series. She is a former chairperson of Humanity+, the author of “Empathy in the Time of Technology: How Storytelling is the Key to Empathy,” and a frequent guest host and guest on podcasts including the World Transformed. PJ is a culture vulture and SF geek, and the daughter and mother of them, too. When not contemplating the future of humanity, she is a mother, wife, and education activist in California.

Older than the Universe: Mega Mysteries Sep 15, 2017

Phil and Stephen discuss mysteries both cosmic and small-scale. The Greatest Cosmic Puzzle: Astronomers Find Stars That Appear Older Than The Universe The oldest stars we've found in the Universe are nearly pristine, where almost 100% of what makes them up is the hydrogen and helium left over from the Big Bang. They come in at over 13 billion years old, with the oldest at 14.5 billion. And this is a big problem, because the Universe itself is only 13.8 billion years old. Do we have the age of the universe wrong or the age of these stars wrong? Any other possible explanation? Tasmanian tiger: Trio release footage they claim is sighting of thylacine Footage of a purported Tasmanian tiger sighting has been released, but the experts are yet to agree the species is back from the dead. Key points: Three Tasmanian men believe an animal they filmed last November is a thylacine Wildlife expert Nick Mooney says the animal is most likely a spotted quoll But Mr Mooney concedes there is a 20 per cent chance the animal is a Tassie tiger The vision was recorded last November and was shown at a press conference by a group called the Booth Richardson Tiger Team (BRTT), which has been trying to track a thylacine. The team said they had 14 cameras in an area within 50 kilometres of Maydena, changing the sites every fortnight. What Really Happened to Russia's Lost Cosmonauts? Examining the mysterious theories behind Russia's Lost Cosmonauts GEEK OUT The Orville -- Hit or Miss? WT 348-657

Becoming the Gods We Once Feared Sep 13, 2017

What's next for humanity and artificial intelligence? Will we be the AI, and effective cogs in a machine? Will we be the owners of the intelligence -- which won’t exactly be us? Or will we become something far different? What would happen if we upload our brains to computers? Robin Hanson discusses his book, The Age of Em. Will our progeny be uploaded copies of human minds -- worker bees of a vast new economy? Is this the next stage in evolution or is it a nightmare slavery scenario? And if the latter, did our smartphones somehow lead us down this path? AI Will Colonize the Galaxy by the 2050s, According to the “Father of Deep Learning Jürgen Schmidhuber asserts that, by 2050, there will be trillions of self-replicating robot factories on the asteroid belt. In a few million years, robots will naturally explore the galaxy out of curiosity, setting their own goals without much human interaction. In the Year 2100 We Will Become the Gods We Once Feared Michio Kaku says that, like Zeus, we will control the physical universe with our minds. Like Venus we will have perfect, ageless bodies. Seems that he has caught on to the idea of Sexy Immortal Billionaires with Superpowers! More here. Interestingly, this scenario is not incompatible with Robin Hanson’s view that all the actual humans will be retired in the Em scenario. WT 347-656

The Smartphone and Beyond Sep 12, 2017

Phil and Stephen discuss the near, not-so-near, and distant future of the smartphone The smartphone is eventually going to die, and then things are going to get really crazy Related: No beer goggles required: Brewer turns to AR tech in label to set itself apart in crowded market What would happen if we upload our brains to computers? Photo by Charlz Gutiérrez De Piñeres on Unsplash WT 346-655

Where No Fanboy Has Gone Before Sep 07, 2017

Phil and Stephen present a full Geek Out! show discussing the current state of big space and superhero movie franchises. What should we see from upcoming Star Wars, Star Trek, superhero and other geeky film series? Star Trek -- Time to wrap up the current film series? Phil explains how. Is anybody going to watch the new TV show? Orville -- the Galaxy Quest series we've all been waiting for? Han Solo -- Did the change of directors represent preserving a beloved character or tyrannical studio suits stepping in to protect the sensibilities of even more tyrannical fanchildren? Superhero movies in general -- More like Wonder Woman and Spider-Man: Homecoming. Fewer like Guardians of the Galaxy 2. Superman -- Cheer up already! Sheesh. Blade Runner 2049 -- Not looking great. WT 345-654

Beyond the Twitter Decade Sep 05, 2017

10 years ago Twitter was barely a thing used by a very small group of geeks. Today it's a cornerstone of how our society communicates. (The President’s tweets alone...) Phil and Stephen discuss early-stage technologies that may become dominant over the next ten years, including: Augmented Reality Autonomous Vehicles Cryptocurrencies CRISPR-based gene therapies Will these pan out, or should other technologies become dominant? Tune in and explore. WT 344-653 Photo by Shreyas Malavalli

The Trouble with AI Aug 30, 2017

Phil and Stephen discuss the chances that super-smart AI might be upon us and the risks we face even if it isn't. Plus what do we do about the fact that when it comes to AI we often just don't get it? The Myth of Superhuman AI From Kevin Kelly's article: The assumptions behind a superhuman intelligence arising soon are: Artificial intelligence is already getting smarter than us, at an exponential rate.We’ll make AIs into a general purpose intelligence, like our own.We can make human intelligence in silicon.Intelligence can be expanded without limit.Once we have exploding superintelligence it can solve most of our problems. In contradistinction to this orthodoxy, I find the following five heresies to have more evidence to support them Intelligence is not a single dimension, so “smarter than humans” is a meaningless concept.Humans do not have general purpose minds, and neither will AIs.Emulation of human thinking in other media will be constrained by cost.Dimensions of intelligence are not infinite.Intelligences are only one factor in progress. Dear Elon–Forget Killer Robots. Here’s What You Should Really Worry About The Dark Secret at the Heart of AI WT 343-652

Living Forever (if They Let Us) Aug 28, 2017

Phil and Stephen discuss progress in anti-aging treatments and the role that regulations play in making treatments available. Can Science Reverse Aging? Jose Cordeiro: In 30 years, I will be younger than today Telomere shortening: Liz Parish already demonstrating rejuvenation technologyDoing it on her own dimeNot legal in the US -- had to go to South AmericaRegulations prevent self-experimentation Metformin could be the first FDA approved antiaging drug Nir Barzilai, director of the Institute for Aging Research at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in the Bronx, like most in his field, was aware of the good news about metformin that had been trickling out year after year. The FDA will not make its decision on whether metformin becomes the US’s first antiaging drug until the study, dubbed Targeting Aging with Metformin (TAME for short) This Bio-Hacking Anti-Aging Product Has a Unique Cult Following: Doctors So, what exactly is Basis? According to ElysiumHealth.com (where a one-month supply is sold for $60): “Cells need the coenzyme NAD+ to function, and NAD+ declines as we age. Basis is clinically proven to increase NAD+ levels.” WT 342-651

Anywhere in Four Hours Aug 25, 2017

Phil and Stephen discuss the eclipse, the top scientific discoveries of the year, a new spacesuit from SpaceX, and the airplane that may take us anywhere we want to go...in just four hours. The 10 Most Significant Scientific Discoveries Of the Year (So Far) Elon Musk reveals his SpaceX spacesuit. The suit features a unique helmet design. It appears to be more of a flight suit than one designed for spacewalks. Space Could Leave You Blind, And Scientists Say They've Finally Figured Out Why Skylon: The Plane That Can Fly Anywhere In The World In 4 Hours GEEKOUT: How to podcast - from a couple of guys that have been doing it since the beginning. 1. Listen to a lot of podcasts 2. Make it about something you care a lot about 3. It would help if that topic is something there aren't a million podcasts about already - (there are plenty of shows about politics for example) 4. Don't script 5. But have topics that you are familiar with to talk about. 6. Have a cohost 7. Show your sense of humor... let your audience get to know you. 8. Have guests, but not too soon. WT 341-650

A List of Lists of Positive Developments Aug 23, 2017

Phil and Stephen work through three lists of positive developments and the forces that are driving them. 15 Really Good Things That Are Happening in The World Right Now New Tech Is Giving Humanity Many Potential Paths to Immortality These 7 Forces Are Changing the World at an Extraordinary Rate WT 340-649

Recalibrating the Possible, Best of TWT Aug 22, 2017

Phil, Stephen, and Michael D. discuss new technologies (and ideas for new technologies) that push the limits of the possible. A good example of something that's possible: Sequencing the Woolly Mammoth genome. Examples of technologies that push the limits: Faster-than-light travelThe Star-Trek style transporter. Indefinite human lifespan Personal flight - Superman style Hypercomputers Retrieval of all extinct species A bridge across the Atlantic OceanEliminating world hunger [This show first aired November 24, 2008.] Photo by Eugene Lim on Unsplash

Exploring the Hype Cycle Aug 21, 2017

Phil and Stephen explore emerging technologies using the 2017 Gartner Hype Cycle as a frame of reference. What’s new? What’s long gone but due for a comeback? And what’s so new it’s not yet even being hyped? Gartner's Hype Cycle for Emerging Technologies, 2017 Adds 5G And Deep Learning For First Time Deep Learning, 5G, and...AGI? Bill Joy’s Jesus Battery Is this new solid, polymer-based rechargeable alkaline battery a game-changer? China small modular pebble beds will be $400 million for 200 MW and $1.2 billion for 600 MW Clean nuclear power on the cheap -- and about to get MUCH cheaper Artificial Intelligence Created Using Human DNA AI meets biotech...sorta. Photo by Daniel Monteiro on Unsplash WT 339-648

Energy Unlimited with J Storrs Hall, Part 2 Aug 18, 2017

Phil and Stephen continue their discussion with J. Storrs (Josh) Hall. How do nuclear power, nanotechnology, and artificial intelligence hold the key to a future of unlimited energy? Josh is an independent scientist and author. His is the author of Beyond AI: Creating the Conscience of the Machine, which details the (possibly) imminent development of strong AI, and the desirability, if and when that happens, that such AIs be equipped with a moral sense and conscience. He is also the author of Nanofuture, dealing with real nanotechnology, i.e. molecular machines. He was the founder and moderator of the sci.nanotech newsgroup for a decade. He is known as the originator of the Utility Fog concept. He is a proponent of replacing roads and internal combustion vehicles with flying cars. Most recently, Josh has been working on a book about flying cars and has recently received his pilot’s license. Listen to part 1 here . Photo by Derek Thomson on Unsplash WT 338-647

Energy Unlimited with J Storrs Hall, Part 1 Aug 16, 2017

J. Storrs (Josh) Hall joins Phil and Stephen for a discussion of his contribution to Visions for a World Transformed, "Let's Get Back on the Henry Adams Curve." How do nuclear power, nanotechnology, and artificial intelligence hold the key to a future of unlimited energy? Josh is an independent scientist and author. His is the author of Beyond AI: Creating the Conscience of the Machine, which details the (possibly) imminent development of strong AI, and the desirability, if and when that happens, that such AIs be equipped with a moral sense and conscience. He is also the author of Nanofuture, dealing with real nanotechnology, i.e. molecular machines. He was the founder and moderator of the sci.nanotech newsgroup for a decade. He is known as the originator of the Utility Fog concept. He is a proponent of replacing roads and internal combustion vehicles with flying cars. Most recently, Josh has been working on a book about flying cars and has recently received his pilot’s license. Photo by Joey Kyber on Unsplash. WT 337-646

"Live" from Convergence 08 Part 1, Best of TWT Aug 15, 2017

Phil, Stephen, and Michael D. interview participants at Convergence 08, an "unconference" gathering of people interested in cognitive tech, nanotech, biotech, and artificial intelligence. The event was held in 2008 (obviously) at the History of Computing museum in Mountain View, California. We did quick interviews with as many interesting people as we could squeeze into our 1-hour timeslot. In Part 1 we hear from: PJ Manney George Dvorsky Miguel F. Aznar Brian Mallow What a lineup!

On the Other Hand... Aug 14, 2017

Phil and Stephen revisit ideas from recent shows. Should we keep kids off their electronic devices? Does VR make us more vulnerable or stronger when it comes to discerning the world around us? Let them play: kids glued to phones could save UK, ex-spy chief says LONDON (Reuters) - Parents who think they are being responsible by limiting their children's time online should think again: they could be putting their kids and Britain's security at a disadvantage, according to a former British spy chief. "If you appear to be spending your holiday unsuccessfully attempting to separate your children from Wi-Fi or their digital devices, do not despair," Robert Hannigan, a former director of the Government Communications Headquarters, wrote in the British newspaper The Telegraph. How VR Gaming Will Wake Us up to Our Fake Worlds Human civilization has always been a virtual reality. At the onset of culture, which was propagated through the proto-media of cave painting, the talking drum, music, fetish art making, oral tradition and the like, Homo sapiens began a march into cultural virtual realities, a march that would span the entirety of the human enterprise. We don’t often think of cultures as virtual realities, but there is no more apt descriptor for our widely diverse sociological organizations and interpretations than the metaphor of the “virtual reality.” Indeed, the virtual reality metaphor encompasses the complete human project. Interesting counterpoint to... Is This the Real Life? WT 336-645

Dispatches from the Robo-Wars Aug 11, 2017

Phil and Stephen discuss the good-new / bad-news of the robotics revolution. Our Minds Have Been Hijacked by Our Phones. Tristan Harris Wants to Rescue Them Harris is a former product manager at Google who has gone viral repeatedly by critiquing the way that the big platforms—Apple, Facebook, Google, YouTube, Snapchat, Twitter, Instagram—suck us into their products and take time that, in retrospect, we may wish we did not give. Silicon Valley luminaries are busily preparing for when robots take over Antonio is worried about where modern technology – especially the twin forces of automation and artificial intelligence – is taking us. He thinks it’s developing much faster than people outside Silicon Valley realize, and we’re on the cusp of another industrial revolution that will rip through the economy and destroy millions of jobs. Geek Out! The New Bobiverse book is out Stephen saw Valerian and thinks its better than the critics are letting on. WT 335-644 Photo by Adrien Milcent on Unsplash

Emergent Magic: Why Ideas Are Becoming More Valuable Aug 09, 2017

Phil and Stephen discuss why ideas are becoming more valuable, along with other news from the future. Emergent Magic: Why Ideas Are Becoming More Valuable Is the value of ideas diminished by their ubiquity as the “ideas are a dime a dozen” argument would have it, or is it diminished by the low probability that they will amount to anything? Senate passes ‘right to try’ bill to help terminally ill patients get experimental drugs The Senate on Thursday passed by unanimous consent a measure designed to make it easier for terminally ill patients to get access to experimental treatments without oversight from the Food and Drug Administration. NASA's Age Reversing Pill Begins Human Testing Within 6 Months When treating mice with an NAD+ 'booster' called NMN , studies showed improvement in the cells' ability to repair the damaged DNA. “This is the closest we are to a safe and effective anti-ageing drug that's perhaps only three to five years away from being on the market if the trials go well. In the study, cells of old mice were indistinguishable from the young mice after just one week of treatment,” said lead author Professor David Sinclair." WT 334-643

WOW. Just WOW. History-Making News Aug 04, 2017

Phil and Stephen review news stories that may change history. And they all broke this week. In Breakthrough, Scientists Edit a Dangerous Mutation From Genes in Human Embryos (Related) Ethical concerns over dawn of the designer baby: Campaigners warn breakthrough that removed faulty DNA could lead to creation of 'superior' children with genes modified to improve appearance or intelligence William Gibson quote: "In an age of affordable beauty, there was something heraldic about his lack of it." Artificial intelligence can stop premature aging Want to live FOREVER? Major breakthrough in cryogenic freezing GEEK OUT Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind WT 333-642

Hot Topics! Best of TWT Aug 03, 2017

Phil, Stephen, and Michael D. discuss fast trains, future pets, global warming, cosmic mysteries, and solar energy. The future of dogs as pets. Will they be the only acceptable pets in the future? Remembering Michael Crichton California bullet train between San Francisco and Los Angeles. Dark flow to the universe Bjorn Lomborg on global warming. Ray Kurzweil and the Solar Singularity. Should solar power be promoted by government or the private sector?. [This show first aired November 10 2008.] Photo by Jeremy Bishop on Unsplash

The Semi-Automated Economy Aug 02, 2017

Phil and Stephen continue their discussion with strategy expert Will Brown, exploring what role there might be for human workers in an increasingly automated world. Topics: Neanderpundit -- selected readings: Watch This Space Next And Then OK, Now For A Simple Circle So Silicon Greybeard Cutting Tools But Why? Hierarchy Of Code Robots Now, You'd Think Here's The Thing Does a modified search program actually achieve "imagination?" Will AI soon replace even the most advanced consultants? In her book, "A Crack In Creation", Jennifer Doudna makes clear that the technical capability required to perform gene editing is within the realm of a typical high school chemistry students capabilities. WT 332-641

Should Jeff Bezos "Hire" Humanity? Aug 01, 2017

Will Brown joins Phil and Stephen to outline an intriguing scenario for the future: how Jeff Bezos can hire humanity. Topics covered: Jeff Bezos is already having trouble finding places to put his cash. Jeff Bezos needs to create opportunities to invest his money in ways and places that expand his business and permit him a degree of control over the process with little need for direct involvement himself in routine operations. Amazon has begun moving in expansive directions in recent years; Amazon Studios, marketing Kenmore appliances recently, reportedly working to get into health care delivery and/or support services. Before very long, Jeff Bezos is going to need 10's of thousands (likely millions) of remote vehicle/device operators. One of the most likely follow-ons to the orbital and lunar efforts will be construction of asteroid mining capabilities. Jeff Bezos will necessarily have to invest massively in electrical power generation and distribution technology as well as communication infrastructure to enable planetary involvement in all of the above. About Our Guest: Futurist and strategy guru Will Brown is a newly enlisted member in the ranks of the gainfully unemployed, otherwise known as retirement. As such he anticipates many future opportunities to speculate about issues without the distraction of employment getting in the way. In other words, he has no idea what comes next, but he's confident he'll have something to say about it. Will is a co-author of Visions for a World Transformed. He blogs at Where There’s a William. WT 331-640

Convergence 08, Best of TWT Jul 31, 2017

Phil, Stephen, and Michael D. welcome PJ Manney and Christine Peterson to discuss Convergence '08 an unconference that evolved from the Foresight Nanotech Institute's Topics for the unconference: nanotech, biotech, cogtech, and infotech. The gang brainstorms possible unconference topics: A discussion room in which participants stand up to speculate about how/when their own jobs will be made obsolete. Networking opportunities Fab lab printing of human organs The versatility of buckypaper Programmable matter Virology -- both fighting viruses and using viruses to our ends. [First aired November 2, 2008.]

Is This the Real Life? Jul 28, 2017

Phil and Stephen explore the increasingly blurry line between fantasy and reality. Are we on the verge of a reality crisis? Where Does Reality End and Imagination Begin? In the Future, We Might Not Know "The line between what it means to be dreaming and what it means to be awake is going to become very interesting," says Jordan Greenhall, CEO of Neurohacker. Virtual reality is perhaps the easiest way to conceive of that concept right now, but it's just one piece in a much larger body of accelerated technology on the horizon.. Prescription Video Games May Be the Future of Medicine Akili is a Boston-based tech company that has used Neuroscape’s core technology to develop a mobile game called Project: EVO. The goal is make Project: EVO so powerful, that it could potentially help treat children with ADHD — as a prescription-based video game. This Week In Science OTHER GEEK Dr. Who update Hard Candy / Cotton Candy WT 330-639

Alternative Energy and the Future, Best of TWT Jul 27, 2017

Phil and Stephen discuss the role that alternative energy sources will play in shaping the future. Topics: Unlocking the secret of how green plants efficiently split water to make hydrogen and oxygen Development of a smart utility grid Will the big contest for alternative fuels be between alcohol-based fuels and compressed natural gas? Blacklight power--anything to it? [Nine years later, apparently not. ] [This show first aired October 28 2008.]

Youth: Wasted on the Wrong People Jul 26, 2017

Phil and Stephen review recent anbti-aging news from the standpoint of the elderly. Is This the Anti-Aging Pill We’ve All Been Waiting For? A drug derived from an Easter Island bacterium extends the life of lab animals. People could be next. Cellular Reprogramming Rejuvenates Old Mice and Boosts Lifespans 30% Using a process designed to “reprogram” normal adult cells into pluripotent stem cells—cells that can transform into many different kinds of cells—researchers have managed to boost the life spans of mice by up to 30% and rejuvenate some of their tissues. Amplicell Stem Cell Banking What if you knew that you could store your own cells so that one day, if you ever needed them, they would be available to repair such common things as joint pain, heart disease, stroke, respiratory conditions, bladder and pelvic inflammatory conditions, erectile dysfunction, renal failure, deadly untreatable neurologic conditions, fibromyalgia, results from athletic or military trauma including concussions, and perhaps even extend life by slowing the aging process. Trials are starting soon that use a person’s own stem cells to carry cancer killing biologic agents directly into cancer tissue to destroy the tumors. Movies mentioned: 18 Again It's a Wonderful Life WT 329-638

The Social Singularity, Best of TWT Jul 25, 2017

Phil and Stephen discuss the role that Internet technologies have played in changing society and speculate about what is coming next. Are we in for a Social Singularity? Future currency for everyone will be credibility and transparency. Indeed, that is even now becoming the 'currency' for us all. That credibility is predicated upon accountability. If we do not tell the truth, if we do not strive for accuracy in our spoken and written words, we will be held accountable. If we are not willing to accept correction or admit to our mistakes and immediately correct them, we lose credibility. The future will not be about ideology, ambition or agenda. It will be credibility. This is called a "Social Singularity." [First aired October 20 2008.]

The Comeback of Nanotechnology Jul 24, 2017

Phil and Stephen discuss recent progress towards the original model of Nanotechnology as described by K. Eric Drexler in his book Engines of Creation. Eric Drexler’s Vision of Nanotechnology is Making a Comeback In 2016 the concept of advanced molecular machines received a significant boost in its public image when Jean-Pierre Sauvage, Fraser Stoddart, and Bernard Feringa were awarded the 2016 Nobel Prize in Chemistry “for the design and synthesis of molecular machines.” Makers of World’s Smallest Machines Awarded Nobel Prize in Chemistry Molecular machines, the world’s smallest mechanical devices, may eventually be used to create new materials, sensors and energy storage systems, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said in announcing the prize. New Funding Opportunity from U.S. DOE USDA Announces $4.6 Million for Nanotechnology Research The Reluctant Visionary (Phil's review of Drexler's book Radical Abundance.) WT 328-637

Hyperloop Coming Soon? Jul 21, 2017

Elon Musk says he has a green light to build a NY–Philly–Baltimore–DC hyperloop Elon Musk just tweeted that his Boring Company tunnel project has received “verbal [government] approval” to build a hyperloop connecting New York City, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington, DC. Feeding Cows diet with 2% seaweed can eliminate 2-4 billion tons of CO2 per year A 2016 study that claims feeding cows small amounts of seaweed along with their normal diet of grass can reduce methane emissions by up to 99 per cent. Scientists Have Reversed Brain Damage in a 2-Year-Old Girl Who Drowned in a Swimming Pool Researchers in the US have reported what they believe is a first-of-its-kind reversal of brain damage, after treating a drowned and resuscitated toddler with a combination of oxygen therapies. China has pulled off a 'profound' feat of teleportation that may help it 'dominate the way the world works' In early July, scientists in China revealed they had used a "spooky" property of the universe to pull off teleportation between the ground and space for the first time. OTHER GEEK 'Doctor Who': The 13th Doctor is a woman, Jodie Whittaker WT 327-636

What Will $700 Billion Buy You? Best of TWT Jul 20, 2017

Phil, Stephen, and Michael D. discuss better options for spending the $700 billion bailout money that went to “solving” the 2008 financial crisis. Seven Apollo programs?70 Large Hadron Colliders?Nuclear fusion?Cure for aging?Friendly artificial general intelligence?Space elevator?Bussard reactor?Universal assembler? What would you do with $700 billion?

Breakthroughs in Life Extension (with Aubrey de Grey) Jul 19, 2017

Phil and Stephen continue their discussion with Dr. Aubrey de Grey, reviewing some of the very encouraging life extension research currently taking place How does the treatment of other conditions (cancer, diabetes, obesity, heart disease, etc) ultimately contribute to the first generation of anti-aging medicine?Will devices such as those created for the Qualcomm Tricorder X Prize be a game-changer for treating aging? What role will CRISPR technology play in helping us to live longer?Metformin -- miracle youth drug or a lot of hype?Of the seven kinds of cell damage that constitute aging, which are we gaining on with the current research?And which is the most challenging? About Our Guest: Dr. Aubrey de Grey is a biomedical gerontologist who researched the idea for and founded the SENS Research Foundation. SENS stands for “Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence,” an idea that Aubrey outlined in his 2007 book, Ending Aging. Aubrey has a BA in Computer Science and a Ph.D. in Biology from the University of Cambridge. He is Editor-in-Chief of Rejuvenation Research, is a Fellow of both the Gerontological Society of America and the American Aging Association, and sits on the editorial and scientific advisory boards of numerous journals and organizations. He is also a contributor to our book Visions for a World Transformed. WT 327-636

FastForward Radio Anniversary Special, Best of TWT Jul 18, 2017

Phil, Stephen, Michael D. and PJ Manney review the show’s first year on Blog Talk Radio. Topics: The glitch of the week A clip from our first show from May of 2005. It was 100% scripted. Robert Zubrin interview Ben Goertzel interview 11 things the president should do for science Jim Elvidge interview A GI Bill for STEM? Carbon nanotube update [This show first aired October 6, 2008.]

Living to 1,000 (with Aubrey de Grey) Jul 17, 2017

Phil and Stephen welcome life extension researcher and visionary Dr. Aubrey de Grey to discuss the sometimes puzzlingly negative views much of the public seem to have about efforts to fight aging. Topics: A question Aubrey raises in Visions for a World Transformed: What possesses people to defend the existence of the phenomenon that is far and away the most likely thing to kill them – and not only that, but to do so slowly and painfully? How is it that the elderly are themselves guilty of ageism? Glenn Reynolds in USA Today What is the pro-aging trance? Methuselah Mouse project as proof of concept for fighting aging Is life extension becoming more mainstream? Is the first human being who will live to the age of 1,000 already among us? About Our Guest: Dr. Aubrey de Grey is a biomedical gerontologist who researched the idea for and founded the SENS Research Foundation. SENS stands for “Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence,” an idea that Aubrey outlined in his 2007 book, Ending Aging. Aubrey has a BA in Computer Science and a Ph.D. in Biology from the University of Cambridge. He is Editor-in-Chief of Rejuvenation Research, is a Fellow of both the Gerontological Society of America and the American Aging Association, and sits on the editorial and scientific advisory boards of numerous journals and organizations. He is also a contributor to our book Visions for a World Transformed. WT 326-635

Checking in on the Future Jul 14, 2017

Phil and Stephen check in on some positive future-related stories that we’ve been tracking for a while now. Good News, Despite What You’ve Heard Just since 1990, more than 100 million children’s lives have been saved through vaccinations and improved nutrition and medical care. Every day, another 250,000 people graduate from extreme poverty, according to World Bank figures. Fusion Energy on Grid by 2030, Says MIT Scientist "I think fusion energy on the grid by 2030 is certainly within reach by this point," Marmar said. "2030 is probably aggressive, but I don't think it's wildly out of range." Forget the Blood of Teens. This Pill Promises to Extend Life for a Nickel a Pop The drug in question, metformin, costs about five cents a pill. Metformin-takers tended to be healthier in all sorts of ways. They lived longer and had fewer cardiovascular events, and in at least some studies they were less likely to suffer from dementia and Alzheimer’s. OTHER GEEK Planet of the Apes -- Whatever Happened to the Fun Apocalypse? Grail games -- You got to know when to hold ‘em and know when to...sell ‘em for a big pile of money. WT 325-634

A World Gone Right, Best of TWT Jul 13, 2017

Topics: Breaking News! About an hour-and-a-half prior to the show SpaceX put the Falcon 1 into orbit.The Chinese got into orbit and performed a space walk. Another "Long Shot Future." The Chinese think that they can get the Emdrive operational. The adoption of cell phones in developing countries. In some places laying phone lines is prohibitively expensive. Cell towers are much cheaper.New way to control protein activity could lead to cancer therapies12-year-old William Yuan has made a revolutionary improvement in 3D solar cells.The Japanese are giving serious attention to the idea of a space elevator. [First aired Sept 28, 2008]

Who's a Technoprogressive? Jul 12, 2017

James Hughes joins Phil and Stephen for a discussion of the meaning of technoprogressivism. How does it differ not only from mainstream porgressivism but also from alternative transhuman philosophies such as technolibertarianism? What are the differences and why do they matter? And what are the similarities and why do THEY matter? Score yourself on the 14-point technoprogressive self-diagnostic to determine how well this political philosophy aligns with your own views. About our Guest: James Hughes is the Executive Director of the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies. He is a bioethicist and sociologist who serves as the Associate Provost for Institutional Research, Assessment and Planning, for the University of Massachusetts, Boston. He holds a doctorate in sociology from the University of Chicago, where he also taught bioethics at the MacLean Center for Clinical Medical Ethics. James is author of Citizen Cyborg: Why Democratic Societies Must Respond to the Redesigned Human of the Future, and is working on a second book tentatively titled Cyborg Buddha. He is also a contributor to our book, Visions for a World Transformed. From 1999-2011 he produced the syndicated weekly radio program, Changesurfer Radio. James is a Fellow of the World Academy of Arts and Sciences, and a member of Humanity+, the Neuroethics Society, the American Society of Bioethics and Humanities, and the Working Group on Ethics and Technology at Yale University. He serves on the State of Connecticut Regenerative Medicine Research Advisory Committee. When not doing all that, James speaks on medical ethics, health care policy, and future studies worldwide. WT 324-633

Better All the Time! Best of TWT Jul 11, 2017

Phil, Stephen, and Michael D. discuss future-facing news stories that are (almost) too good to be true: Who would have thought that study of a potato virus would lead to a treatment for Alzheimer's Disease? Spock's Chessboard The future is less knowable today than ever. Human creativity is both the cause of this, and how to deal with this. Here is the Sir Ken Robinson TED Talk Anything (gross) can be turned into oil. Tweaking the gene for ear hair can improve hearing for many with hearing loss. Cloud computing -- it no longer matters what Internet-based machine the user is operating. Steam video game service. No more worrying about patches for games because you're games are updated automatically. Cat lost for 9 years is returned to the owner because of a embedded microchip. Success for the Large Hadron Collider worked. [This show first aired September 22, 2008.]

The Virtues Control Panel with James Hughes Jul 10, 2017

Can we program ourselves to be better people? Phil and Stephen welcome James Hughes to discuss his concept of a Virtues Control Panel: "What I imagine is a virtues control panel with sliders that determine the balance of moral impulses, cognition and behavior in different situations, governed by a morality operating system. When we are working on tasks that require focus and care we would turn up concentration, conscientiousness and prefrontal control. We could also flag specific behaviors, words or even thoughts to be suppressed, and others to be enhanced. When our metabolic monitor indicates we have reached maximum calories for the day or reached peak inebriation, the sub-routines would tell us we can't eat another bite and that we don't want that next drink. " From: Visions for a World Transformed About our Guest: James Hughes is the Executive Director of the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies. He is a bioethicist and sociologist who serves as the Associate Provost for Institutional Research, Assessment and Planning, for the University of Massachusetts, Boston. He holds a doctorate in sociology from the University of Chicago, where he also taught bioethics at the MacLean Center for Clinical Medical Ethics. James is author of Citizen Cyborg: Why Democratic Societies Must Respond to the Redesigned Human of the Future, and is working on a second book tentatively titled Cyborg Buddha. He is also a contributor to our book, Visions for a World Transformed. From 1999-2011 he produced the syndicated weekly radio program, Changesurfer Radio. WT 323-632

Going Full Geek Jul 06, 2017

Phil, Stephen, and PJ geek out, big time. Topics: Are science fiction conventions the key to solving all of the world's problems? What surprises await us in PJ's next book? Tune in and find out! (Well, maybe one or two, anyway.) About PJ: PJ Manney is the author of the bestselling and Philip K. Dick Award nominated (R)EVOLUTION, book 1 in the Phoenix Horizon series. She is a former chairperson of Humanity+, the author of "Empathy in the Time of Technology: How Storytelling is the Key to Empathy," and a frequent guest host and guest on podcasts including the World Transformed . She has worked in motion-picture PR at Walt Disney/Touchstone Pictures, story development and production for independent film production companies including such movies as Hook, Universal Soldier, and It Could Happen to You plus she was a writer for two of the coolest TV shows of all time Hercules--The Legendary Journeys Xena: Warrior Princess). PJ is a culture vulture and SF geek, and the daughter and mother of them, too. When not contemplating the future of humanity, she is a mother, wife, and education activist in California. WT 322-631

Whatever Happened to the Future? Jul 04, 2017

PJ Manney joins Phil and Stephen for a special Fourth of July edition of the World Transformed. Topics: The Declaration of Singularity PJ's contribution to Visions for a World Transformed, "Only Connect." A History of the 20th Century, with Illustrations Where have optimism and good will and, yes, empathy gone? Tune in and explore! About our guest: PJ Manney is the author of the bestselling and Philip K. Dick Award nominated (R)EVOLUTION, book 1 in the Phoenix Horizon series. She is a former chairperson of Humanity+, the author of "Empathy in the Time of Technology: How Storytelling is the Key to Empathy," and a frequent guest host and guest on podcasts including the World Transformed . She has worked in motion-picture PR at Walt Disney/Touchstone Pictures, story development and production for independent film production companies including such movies as Hook, Universal Soldier, and It Could Happen to You plus she was a writer for two of the coolest TV shows of all time Hercules--The Legendary Journeys Xena: Warrior Princess). PJ is a culture vulture and SF geek, and the daughter and mother of them, too. When not contemplating the future of humanity, she is a mother, wife, and education activist in California. WT 321-630

Our Smart Phones, Our Selves Jun 30, 2017

Are our smart phones and other devices about to become even more deeply embedded in our lives? Phil looks at some interesting trends and developments. Amazon’s New Echo Show Is Very Cool And A Little Creepy Long ago, when we imagined the future, we often imagined video calls. And although they’ve been around forever, doing one from a mobile phone, or a desktop computer, never felt quite as futuristic as this pulsing thing in my kitchen that’s always watching me, and always listening, ready to do what I tell it. In 10 Years, Your iPhone Won’t Be a Phone Anymore Siri will be the conductor of a suite of devices, all tracking your interactions and anticipating your next moves How technology-enabled ‘selves-improvement’ will drive the future of personal productivity Instead of simply surrounding knowledge workers with ever-better digital assistants and bots, organizations and their workers will get greater returns investing in “selves improvement.” That is, providing digital tools, techniques and technologies that empower employees to craft high-performance versions of themselves — “selves” that are smarter, bolder, more creative, more persuasive and/or more empathic than one’s “typical” or “average” self. OTHER GEEK Sigourney Weaver in Rakka WT 320-629

How Memes Shape the Future Part 2, Best of TWT Jun 29, 2017

Phil, Stephen, and Michael D talk more about memes. What are the memes that need to go away? What are the memes that need to be promoted? Some memes we're better off without: Racism Sexism Theocracy Luddism Slavery Death? Memes that need to be promoted Spock's Cheesboard Creativity as Important as Literacy Something is going to happen...something wonderful [This show first aired September 16, 2008.]

Barely Distinguishable from Magic Jun 28, 2017

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. Arthur C. Clarke Phil and Stephen review technologies so advanced they border on the magical. Craig Venter’s ‘Digital-to-Biological Converter’ Is Real Right now, it prints proteins. In the far future, it could print human babies on Mars. The tabletop device is called the Digital-to-Biological Converter, or DBC for short, and without a fancy box it looks like a bunch of complicated mechanical crap laid out on a table. The device accepts digital representations of DNA over the internet and reconstructs them on the spot using the chemical building blocks of life—adenine, cytosine, guanine, and thymine. Sound waves direct particles to self-assemble, self-heal An elegantly simple experiment with floating particles self-assembling in response to sound waves has provided a new framework for studying how seemingly lifelike behaviors emerge in response to external forces. The idea of creating a new universe in the lab is no joke In the 1980s, the cosmologist Alex Vilenkin at Tufts University in Massachusetts came up with a mechanism through which the laws of quantum mechanics could have generated an inflating universe from a state in which there was no time, no space and no matter. WT 319-628

Disruptive Technologies: Bringing in the Big Bucks Jun 27, 2017

Phil and Stephen review seven big-money disruptive technologies as described in this piece on Singularity Hub. These 7 Disruptive Technologies Could Be Worth Trillions of Dollars 1. Deep Learning Could Be Worth 35 Amazons 2. Fleets of Autonomous Taxis to Overtake Automakers 3. 3D Printing Goes Big With Finished Products at Scale 4. CRISPR Starts With Genetic Therapy, But It Doesn’t End There 5. Mobile Transactions Could Grow 15x by 2020 6. Robotics and Automation to Liberate $12 Trillion by 2035 7. Blockchain and Cryptoassets: Speculatively Spectacular Join us! WT 318-627

All Stars Are Born in Pairs Jun 23, 2017

Phil and Stephen review future-facing news on a variety of topics. Johns Hopkins researchers say they've unlocked key to cancer metastasis and how to slow it When the tumor reaches a certain density, the study found, it releases two proteins called Interleukin 6 and Interleukin 8, signaling to cancer cells that things had grown too crowded and it was time to break off and head into other parts of the body. New evidence that all stars are born in pairs We ran a series of statistical models to see if we could account for the relative populations of young single stars and binaries of all separations in the Perseus molecular cloud, and the only model that could reproduce the data was one in which all stars form initially as wide binaries. These systems then either shrink or break apart within a million years." Worm Grows 2 Heads in Space, Surprising Scientists Compared with a group of flatworms that never left Earth, the spacefaring worms showed some unexpected effects from their time off the planet: most notably, the rare sprouting of a second head in an amputated piece of a worm, the researchers documented in a new study. OTHER GEEK Developers Who Use Spaces Make More Money Than Those Who Use Tabs Texas: Geek Vacationer's Paradise WT 317-626

How Memes Shape the Future, Best of TWT Jun 22, 2017

Phil and Stephen explore the wonderful world of memetics. If our world is increasingly made of data, is it possible to overestimate the importance of these sticky, self-reproducing ideas? The future is made out of our ideas about the future (our memes), our actions now, and how those actions interact with the world within the context of the current state of technology. Topics: Memes: idea viruses. President Obama's "Just Word's" speech. Memes: the lifeblood of politics Early memes gave us civilization: fire, animal domestication, agriculture, and beer! Songs -- "Don't worry, be Happy" The chain letter-- bait, a hook, and even negative consequences for not passing it on. Jokes show how memes can mutate and evolve over time. Urban legends -- see Snopes How Phil got so "infected by memes" at a Foresight Nanotech Vision weekend that he started the Speculist. Aubrey de Grey: radical life extension is a meme that will save millions of lives. [This show first aired September 9, 2008.]

Amazing Engineering Means Business Jun 22, 2017

Phil and Stephen review stories about big engineering breakthroughs -- and the big economic changes they may lead to. Engineer Creates Green Oasis by Growing Glaciers in the Desert Sonam Wangchuck is an engineer who lives in Ladakh: a village that sits 11,500 feet up in the southern Himalayas. This Startup Is Disrupting The Construction Industry With 3D-Printing Robots CEO and cofounder of Cazza, a 3D printing construction technology launched in 2016. A Google-backed warehouse farm just raised $20 million to build in cities across the US Indoor agriculture startup Bowery says it's creating the farm of the future. Revolutionary solar paint creates endless energy from water vapor Researchers at RMIT University in Melbourne have created a revolutionary new solar paint that can be used to produce endless amounts of clean energy. The innovative paint draws moisture from the air and splits it into oxygen and hydrogen. As a result, hydrogen can be captured as a clean fuel source. Graphene-based computer would be 1,000 times faster than silicon-based, use 100th the power A future graphene-based transistor using spintronics could lead to tinier computers that are a thousand times faster and use a hundredth of the power of silicon-based computers. WT 316-625

Weathering Storms; The Power of Inclusiveness; The Future of Work Jun 22, 2017

Weathering Storms; The Power of Inclusiveness; The Future of Work Phil, Stephen, and Michael S. discuss the future of civil rights, the future of technology in government, and the future of work.

The Multi-Dimensional Brain Jun 21, 2017

Phil and Stephen explore some wacky and practical implications of research suggesting that our brains may operate in up to 11 dimensions. Human Brain Discovered to Operate in 11 Dimensions --"Multiverse-Like Structures a World We Never Imagined” Swiss Scientists studying the brain using an advanced mathematical system have discovered that it operates on up to 11 different dimensions, creating multiverse-like structures. The researchers were able to uncover architectural structures that appears when the brain has to process information, before they disintegrate into nothing. Parallel Realities, the Multiverse and Consciousness – My Theory We are unconsciously and consciously living in a multiverse of infinite parallel realities all the time; they are all around us. We don’t usually consciously experience them because what we call consciousness only allows us to experience one simulation at a time. Want a Lifetime of Better Brain Function? Science Says Stop Doing This (It's Not What You Think) Stop only doing what's easy and pleasant. If you're in a great routine at work, break out of it by adding new responsibilities. If you've got an effective workout that you can do without even giving it much thought, add some new elements or up the ante by making it longer and more intense. WT 315-624

Getting Reality Wrong Jun 16, 2017

Phil and Stephen discuss why “reality” is a trickier proposition than we think. A neuroscientist says your 'reality' could be entirely different from the person sitting next to you — and you'll never know how much The broader point that Eagleman is working towards here is that everyone's reality is subjective. We're all trapped in our own brains but laughably confident that we're experiencing the world as it truly is. A Theory of Reality as More Than the Sum of Its Parts Agency doesn’t exist among the atoms, and so reductionism suggests agents don’t exist at all....Hoel’s theory, called “causal emergence,” roundly rejects this reductionist assumption. The Impossible Mathematics of the Real World Near-miss math provides exact representations of almost-right answers. OTHER GEEK Audible Hack Old-school geeking with ham radio WT 314-623

Longshot Futures (Part 2), Best of TWT Jun 15, 2017

Phil, Stephen, and Michael S. discuss MORE unlikely scenarios that will pay off big if they pan out. Topics discussed: Compressed air cars. Cognitive Enhancement -- all time smartest human within the next 20 years? Life Extension. Wireless transmission of power. Faster than light travel. Longshot futures are important because they open our eyes to possibilities, including possibilities for much more likely future developments. Also, it's important to remember that longshots DO pay off every once in a while. So these kinds of scenarios can help us to prepare for the surprises that the future almost certainly does have in store for us. [This show first aired August 25, 2008.]

The Return of Moore’s Law (and Other Amazing Developments) Jun 14, 2017

Phil and Stephen discuss recent positive breakthroughs from a number of fields New Cancer Drug Is So Effective Against Tumors, the FDA Approved It Immediately A small but significant new study is blowing experts away after it found that a particular cancer drug overwhelmingly helped shrink or eradicate tumors in patients whose cancer had resisted every other form of treatment. An IBM Breakthrough Ensures Silicon Will Keep Shrinking Today, an IBM-led group of researchers have detailed a breakthrough transistor design, one that will enable processors to continue their Moore’s Law march toward smaller, more affordable iterations. New “Instantly Rechargeable” Battery Deals a Fatal Blow to Fossil Fuels Purdue researchers have developed technology for an “instantly rechargeable” battery that is affordable, environmentally friendly, and safe. Currently, electric vehicles need charging ports in convenient locations to be viable, but this battery technology would allow drivers of hybrid and electric vehicles to charge up much like drivers of conventional cars refill quickly and easily at gas stations. AI Learns How to Create Human Faces From Scratch There’s nothing more popular in the science and technology world today than artificial intelligence (AI). With companies like Google now pushing an “AI-first” policy, not to mention AlphaGo’s show of dominance against the best Go players we humans could come up with, it’s pretty clear that AI is here to stay – and rise. WT 313-622

Longshot Futures (Part 1), Best of TWT Jun 13, 2017

Phil, Stephen, and Michael D discuss unlikely scenarios that will pay off big if they pan out. Using alpha lipoic acid (APA) as a weight maintenance tool. Blacklight Power -- electricity straight from water. Since this show aired, they became Brilliant Light Power and added dark matter to their pitch! They still aren't producing massive quantities of energy from water, unfortunately Bussard's fusion reactor Plus: Human augmentation to make us all Olympics stars Interstellar travel [This show first aired August 18, 2008.]

A Cure for Multiple Sclerosis? Jun 12, 2017

Phil and Stephen discuss recent positive developments in science and technology. Chinese Experiment Reaches Space Station in Historic First A Chinese experiment is now on the International Space Station (ISS), having reached the orbiting lab Monday (June 5) aboard a SpaceX Dragon cargo spacecraft. ____ Superantibiotic is 25,000 times more potent than its predecessor The world’s last line of defense against disease-causing bacteria just got a new warrior: vancomycin 3.0. Its predecessor—vancomycin 1.0—has been used since 1958 to combat dangerous infections like methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus. But as the rise of resistant bacteria has blunted its effectiveness, scientists have engineered more potent versions of the drug—vancomycin 2.0. Now, version 3.0 has a unique three-pronged approach to killing bacteria that could give doctors a powerful new weapon against drug-resistant bacteria and help researchers engineer more durable antibiotics. ____ In Switzerland, a giant new machine is sucking carbon directly from the air The world's first commercial plant for capturing carbon dioxide directly from the air opened yesterday, refueling a debate about whether the technology can truly play a significant role in removing greenhouse gases already in the atmosphere. ____ Brit scientist could be about to CURE multiple sclerosis and provide hope for millions A British scientist could have made one of the most important medical breakthroughs of recent years. WT 312-621

Universes Colliding (and Other Stories) Jun 09, 2017

Phil and Stephen review review a variety of future-related news items Could cold spot in the sky be a bruise from a collision with a parallel universe? Universal cancer test that detects tumours 10 years before they become dangerous is being developed Moore Law is Dead but GPU will get 1000X faster by 2025 Instead of Retiring, He Decided to Keep Working and Save the Planet Amsterdam and Paris could be connected by Hyperloop by 2021 OTHER GEEK Peeking into the Fanboy Brain Restaurants for Mordor WT 311-620

The Power of Openness, Best of TWT Jun 08, 2017

Phil, Stephen, and Michael D discuss how openness improves any system that tries it.

The Cell Atlas (and Other Breakthrough Technologies) Jun 07, 2017

Phil and Stephen review the final three of MIT Review’s 10 Breakthrough Technologies for 2017. The Cell Atlas Biology’s next mega-project will find out what we’re really made of. Botnets of Things The relentless push to add connectivity to home gadgets is creating dangerous side effects that figure to get even worse. Reinforcement Learning By experimenting, computers are figuring out how to do things that no programmer could teach them. WT 310-619

Solving the World's Problems -- Part 2, Best of TWT Jun 06, 2017

Phil, Stephen, and Michael D set out to solve the world's most challenging problems in the second of two podcasts. This time out they take on: Ending disease Ending war Making the environment pristine [This show originally aired August 24, 2008.]

360° Selfies, Hot Solar Power, and Gene Therapy 2.0 Jun 05, 2017

Phil and Stephen review the next three of MIT Review’s 10 Breakthrough Technologies for 2017 The 360-Degree Selfie Inexpensive cameras that make spherical images are opening a new era in photography and changing the way people share stories. Hot Solar Cells By converting heat to focused beams of light, a new solar device could create cheap and continuous power. Gene Therapy 2.0 Scientists have solved fundamental problems that were holding back cures for rare hereditary disorders. Next we’ll see if the same approach can take on cancer, heart disease, and other common illnesses. WT 309-618

Paying with Your Face, Spinal Repair, Self-Driving Trucks, Quantum Computing May 31, 2017

Phil and Stephen review the first three of MIT Review’s 10 Breakthrough Technologies for 2017. Reversing Paralysis Scientists are making remarkable progress at using brain implants to restore the freedom of movement that spinal cord injuries take away. Self-Driving Trucks Tractor-trailers without a human at the wheel will soon barrel onto highways near you. What will this mean for the nation’s 1.7 million truck drivers? Paying with Your Face Face-detecting systems in China now authorize payments, provide access to facilities, and track down criminals. Will other countries follow? Practical Quantum Computers Advances at Google, Intel, and several research groups indicate that computers with previously unimaginable power are finally within reach. Which of these will impact the largest number of people? Which of these will have the longest-lasting impact? Which is scariest? Which is most exciting? Tune in and explore! WT 308-617

Unlocking the Goddess Code May 26, 2017

Visions for a World Transformed co-author Radhaa Nilia joins Phil and Stephen to discuss global happiness, fMRI-generated mental super-powers, and how getting in touch with the goddess within might just be what each of us (and the world) really needs. Radhaa tells about her work with the Goddess Code Academy and her new Quan Yin certification program, Plus: ‘I knew they were sugar pills but I felt fantastic’ – the rise of open-label placebos The Most Promising Route to Mental Superpowers Results of the Latest Happiness and Life Satisfaction Survey And of course... OTHER GEEK Phil and Stephen debate latest happenings / next steps in the Bobiverse. WT 307-616

Solving the World's Problems -- Part 1, Best of TWT May 25, 2017

Phil, Stephen, and Michael D set out to solve the world's most challenging problems in back-to-back podcasts. First on the agenda: Eliminate crime Abolish hunger and poverty End terrorism

Hidden Mysteries: Dark Matter Worlds, Life in Crystals, Lost Civilizations May 24, 2017

Phil and Stephen explore hidden mysteries that may change our understanding of the history and our place in the universe. Nasa revives 'weird life forms' trapped inside crystals for 60,000 years, raising hopes of finding alien organisms in space Lifeforms which have been living inside crystals for up to 60,000 years have been revived by NASA, raising hopes that alien organisms could be found in extreme environments on other planets. Magicians of the Gods The evidence revealed in this book shows beyond reasonable doubt that an advanced civilization that flourished during the Ice Age was destroyed in the global cataclysms between 12,800 and 11,600 years ago. Scientists are building a DMT machine that will help them 'talk to aliens' See, when DMT is smoked — often in high school basements, college dorms and estates in Silicon Valley — it makes you "see" weird dancing characters: animals, cartoons, aliens and elves. Does Dark Matter Harbor Life? When first studying partially interacting dark matter, I was astonished to find that practically no one had considered the potential fallacy—and hubris—of assuming that only ordinary matter exhibits a diversity of particle types and interactions. A few physicists had tried to analyze models, such as “mirror dark matter,” which features dark matter that mimics everything about ordinary matter. But exemplars such as this one were rather specific and exotic. Their implications were difficult to reconcile with everything we know. WT 306-615

Isolating the Electron, Best of TWT May 23, 2017

Phil, Stephen, and Michael D discuss controlling quantum states of electrons for computing and other breakthroughs. Researchers have controlled the position of a single electron in a silicon circuit. An international team of researchers has shown that it can control the quantum state of a single electron in a silicon transistor--even putting the electron in two places at once. Their discovery could help pave the way toward a practical quantum computer. The Washington Post interview with President and CEO of TVPredictions.com Phillip Swan about the HD/DVD war. Part of what they got into was the fact that standard DVD's can be made to look better with the right equipment. The hybrid bridge to all-electric vehicles The chairman of Tesla Motor Company, Elon Musk, argues that hybrids are not the future - all-electric is where we're going. Your hosts agreed that electric car problems of range, refuel time, and infrastructure will be solved during the transitional hybrid era. They also agreed that this could be a relatively short bridge - a decade or so - to an all-electric transport era. Plus a review of the Dark Knight! [This show first aired July 21, 2008.]

The Non-Zero Probability May 22, 2017

Phil and Stephen discuss how vastly improbable events become reality, and what this tells us about the future. The Odds Of Your Unlikely Existence Were Not Infinitely Small But there's a fun, important, and underappreciated consequence of Bayes' theorem that can tell us something vital about any of these steps: the odds of any one of them happening, no matter how small, could not have been infinitesimal. If you want to create our Universe with our laws of physics, our local group, our Sun, our Earth, and every one of us, given all the conditions that existed before the Big Bang, that probability may be very, very small, but it can't be infinitely small. If it were, our model for the conditions that existed before the Big Bang could be ruled out immediately, with no need to gather data or make measurements. Related How Likely Is Your Life? Okay, so we’re trying to imagine a one followed by 2.685 million zeroes. The probability of you existing is one out of that huge number. Now that’s a long shot, folks. Binazir can be way, way, way off and we’re still talking about an unimaginably huge number. Think about it like this: if you were to sit down and write out your predictions for the winning PowerBall numbers week by week for the next fifty years, and dutifully play the assigned numbers every week, and actually win the jackpot every single time…that’s probably more likely than you ever having been born in the first place. Also related Lines Through Time What are some unlikely outcomes we should be working to achieve? Tune in and explore! WT 305-614

Space Colonies Made Affordable May 19, 2017

Brian Wang joins Phil and Stephen to talk about building relatively low-cost human settlements in low earth orbit. Spacex will begin deploying low cost mass produced internet satellites starting in 2019 SpaceX said it plans to launch thousands of satellites on Falcon 9 rockets beginning in 2019 to establish what would one day become a global broadband internet constellation. Towards an Economically Viable roadmap to large scale space colonization Al Globus and Joe Strout have an analysis that space settlements in low (~500 km) Earth equatorial orbits may not require any radiation shielding at all. This is based on a careful analysis of requirements and extensive simulation of radiation effects. This radically reduces system mass and has profound implications for space settlement, as extraterrestrial mining and manufacturing are no longer on the critical path to the first settlements, although they will be essential in later stages. It also means the first settlements can evolve from space stations, hotels, and retirement communities in relatively small steps. Why does settling space become more affordable in low earth orbit? How can we continue to drive the costs down? Tune in and explore! WT 304-613

Electricity, the Ultimate Flex Fuel, Best of TWT May 18, 2017

Special guests Tobias Buckell and Suraya Yahaya Bowermaster join Phil and Stephen to discuss a variety of technology and future-related topics. Suraya Yahaya on how to avoid being ripped off when buying consumer electronics, and what to do if you ARE ripped off. Tobias Buckell on his novel, Sly Mongoose. Hellboy 2 Review Electric trucks and motorcycles PLUS: Astounding Science Facts! [This show first aired July 14, 2008.]

Coffee, Cheese, and VR Chickens: the Need for Something More May 17, 2017

Phil and Stephen discuss hard-wired behavior -- including our efforts to make the world a better place. Cheese triggers same part of brain as hard drugs, study finds You actually would die without your coffee, research says Drinking three to five cups of coffee per day gives you a longer life, making you 15 percent less likely to die early, lowering your risk of dying from a heart attack or a stroke by 21 percent and slashing your risk for type 2 diabetes by 12 percent. Neuroscience confirms that to be truly happy, you will always need something more Neuroscientist Jaak Panskepp argues that of seven core instincts in the human brain (anger, fear, panic-grief, maternal care, pleasure/lust, play, and seeking), seeking is the most important. All mammals have this seeking system, says Panskepp, wherein dopamine, a neurotransmitter linked to reward and pleasure, is also involved in coordinating planning activities. It's Happening: Scientists Can Now Reverse DNA Ageing in Mice Chemists Are One Step Closer to Manipulating All Matter The case for raising chickens in virtual reality WT 303-612

The Silent Singularity, Best of TWT May 16, 2017

Phil, Stephen, and Michael D. discuss the the silent singularity and a wide range of other futuristic topics. The 100th anniversary of the Tunguska event.Movie reviews: Hancock and Wall-eBrian Wang's Mundane Singularity How much of some of the key goals of a transhuman singularity can be achieved without fullblown molecular nanotechnology, AGI or fusion ? Quite a bit. which is why the real deal with molecular nanotechnology, AGI and fusion will be really impressive. The mundane technological singularity shows the kinds of societal shifts that will be needed in order to fully take advantage of the upside. A lot of systems and processes have to be redesigned. The mundane singularity is 100 to 1000 times faster in terms of production and various capabilities. Phil's TakeDeclaration of SingularityElectric inflatable car!Terrance McKenna- Time WaveKurzweil's logarithmic paradigm shift chartMayan calander and the end of the world in 2012. [This show first aired July 7, 2008.]

Quantum Computers, AI Drug Discovery, and Desktop Deep Learning May 15, 2017

Phil and Stephen discuss computing breakthroughs. Are new paradigms emerging? China adds a quantum computer to high-performance computing arsenal Quantum computers have already been built by companies like IBM and D-Wave, but Chinese researchers have taken a different approach. They are introducing quantum computing using multiple photons, which could provide a superior way to calculate compared to today's computers. The Chinese quantum computing architecture allows for five-photon sampling and entanglement. It's an improvement over previous experiments involving single-photon sourcing, up to 24,000 times faster, the researchers claimed. AI startup Neurala claims major breakthrough in deep learning Artificial intelligence startup Neurala Inc., a company that’s built a deep learning neural network used by NASA among other organizations, today announced a major new breakthrough that it claims will finally make the technology useful for consumers. The company says it has developed deep learning software capable of learning without the need for servers running in the cloud, enabling a new generation of smart cars, children’s toys and industrial machines. Drug Discovery AI Can Do in a Day What Currently Takes Months Last week, researchers published a paper detailing an artificial intelligence system made to help discover new drugs, and significantly shorten the amount of time and money it takes to do so. WT 302-611

Anti-Aging Gets Real May 12, 2017

Phil and Stephen discuss encouraging trends in developing treatments to combat aging One of China's Top Investors Just Put $25 Million Into a US Anti-Aging Company ChromaDex, the natural products company behind an anti-aging compound named the Most Promising Ingredient of the Year in 2012, just came into a ton of cash from one of the world’s top investors. On Friday, billionaire Li Ka-shing—who is the richest man in Hong Kong—purchased $25 million in common stock of the publicly traded California-based company through his venture capital firm Horizon Ventures. This adds to an impressive list of investments for the group, which has backed over 40 disruptive global giants including Facebook, Spotify, Siri, Impossible Foods and DeepMind. OTHER GEEK The Thing is becoming a board game — get a first look WT 302-611

The Future of Fit, Best of TWT May 11, 2017

Panelists Brian Wang, PJ Manney, and Shawn Phillips discuss the future of fitness The future of nutrition: vertical farming, genetically modified foods, vat meat, and a computerized nutritionists that resides "onboard" "Nutraceuticals" - food as medicine.Smoking: getting the information out about how smoking harms health helped reduce smoking. But the social stigma may have moved done more. A tiered system of nutrition? The disconnect between our buff entertainers and our fat butts. Related documentary: "Bigger, Stronger, Faster."The promise of Myostatin inhibition.People that are out of shape don't realize how bad they feel. Feeling bad becomes the new normal.The crappy beta versions of human enhancement that some people are experimenting with today, often to their detriment. When will better enhancements be available?Maybe we need a drug to make us take as much joy out of activity as a five-year-old. For them it's not exercise... it's play. [This show first aired June 30, 2008.]

CRISPR and the New Biotech Revolution May 10, 2017

Phil and Stephen discuss medical breakthroughs enabled by the new gene "word processor,' CRISPR CRISPR and the Dawn of the New Biotech Revolution CRISPR genome editing will transform biotechnology and our lives in the next decade making possible (and cheap*) all kinds of new cures, new crops, new livestock, new industrial processes, and new ways to manage the environmental commons. With regard to new cures, researchers at the Lewis Katz School of Medicine at Temple University and the University of Pittsburgh have just published results in which they used CRISPR to almost entirely eliminate HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, from living experimental animals. More Even though the virus starts as a simple infection, once it becomes part of a person’s chromosome, it essentially becomes a genetic disease. Imagine a world where, instead of removing her breasts, Angelina Jolie could instead have taken a dose of genes that snip away the BRCA2 genes that threatened her with cancer. That’s the difference between a treatment and a cure. WT 301-610

The Future of Fun, Best of TWT May 09, 2017

Phil, Stephen, and Michael D. talk about the future of fun. Will our fun future be jeopardized by peak oil?Will we allow ourselves to enjoy the great future once it gets here? Or will we obsess more and more about less and less serious problems?How much time will we spend in virtual reality?Is the notion that we would get bored with an indefinite lifespan just a new iteration of the Tithonus Error? Maybe we won't get bored because - in addition to remaining biologically young - we'll also be getting smarter. This is part of Eliezer Yudkowsky's Theory of Fun (MP3 of the speech and transcript is at the link). According to his theory, "fun space" is a function of intelligence. The more intelligent we are, the more possibilities of fun we have.Things we can't grasp today will be fun (and funny) to us when we're smarter. Consider the Simpson's episode "Bart the Genius." [This show first aired 06/23/2008.]

Airships to Orbit May 08, 2017

Phil and Stephen discuss sending lighter than air craft into orbit via slow acceleration Can Giant Airships Accelerate To Orbit (JP Aerospace's Idea)? Their airships would be constructed and inflated at an altitude of 140,000 feet on a high altitude platform, his "Dark Sky Station" so called because it is so high in the atmosphere that the sky there is dark, just as it is when seen from space, even at midday. They would be far too flimsy to survive at ground level, but would be fine for flight at that height above all the weather in our atmosphere. Passengers would travel up to this platform in a more conventional stratospheric airship, then transfer to the orbital airship for the final stage of their journey. They then slowly accelerate to orbit over a time period of several days. The Controversy He can't get enough power to accelerate all the way to orbital velocity. He won't be able to generate aerodynamic lift above the conventional "Karman line" The Dark Sky Station would be too heavy to be buoyant at 240,000 feet, or else would be too fragile to last long Will it work? What are the advantages of this approach over rockets? What are the advantages of this approach vs. Space elevator? Tune in and explore! WT 300-609

Super Projects: A Voyage to Saturn, Computer-Brain Interfaces, and Optimistic TV May 05, 2017

Phil and Stephen discuss more super projects, including the Cassini mission, plans to connect human brains directly with computers, and new tech-positive version of Black Mirror. Cassini beams back the closest EVER images of Saturn NASA’s Cassini spacecraft continues making history. As Cassini is plunging into Saturn, the spacecraft has managed to send back to Earth unprecedented, stunning images from its descent down the mysterious gap located between Saturn and its magnificent rings. Zuckerberg: Facebook Is Working on a Brain Interface That Lets You “Communicate Using Only Your Mind” "Tomorrow, we are going to update you on all of our work on connectivity. We have a team right now in Arizona preparing for our second flight of Aquila, our solar powered plane that’s going to help beam down internet connectivity to people all around the globe, and we’re going to update you on a lot of the other technology that we are building too. You’re going to hear from Regina Dugan about some of the work that we’re doing to build even further out beyond augmented reality, and that includes work around direct brain interfaces that are going to, eventually, one day, let you communicate using only your mind." OTHER GEEK Futurists want to transform Black Mirror’s dystopia into something better Netflilx’s Black Mirror has the tech world worried about the dystopian future that the science fiction show depicts. To counter that, a group of futurists, creators, and hackers are gathering in Los Angeles to envision a “White Mirror,” or a society where technology can inspire us instead. WT 299-608

Our Future in Space with Rand Simberg, Best of TWT May 04, 2017

Phil, Stephen, and Michael D. chat with aerospace engineer and blogger Rand Simberg. What is the future of the future of space travel? Are manned missions to Mars and space elevators in our future? How does the privatization of space development factor in? [This show first aired 6/09/2008]

Super Projects: Airships, Bugs that Eat Plastic, Robot Overlords May 03, 2017

Phil and Stephen explore more super projects, including buiulding airships and saving the planet with a caterpillar that eats plastic bags. Google’s Sergey Brin said to be working on a zeppelin-like airship "Google co-founder Sergey Brin has been known to enjoy ambitious flights of technological fancy, but this may be his flightiest: Bloomberg reports the enigmatic billionaire, who favors dark attire and once leapt out of an airplane wearing Google Glass to promote the launch of the wearable, is now working on a secret airship in a NASA hangar. Brin’s interest in zeppelins isn’t purely an anachronistic tick — the Hybrid Air Vehicles HAV 304 Airlander 10 hybrid airship, depicted in the image above, holds the record as the world’s largest aircraft and has some promising benefits for potential military operations, including a very low operational heat signature and radar profile." Scientists have discovered a worm that eats plastic bags and leaves behind antifreeze "The wax worm, a caterpillar typically used for fishing bait and known for damaging beehives by eating their wax comb, has now been observed munching on a different material: plastic bags. Jürgen Schmidhuber on the robot future?: ‘They will pay as much attention to us as we do to ants' "The German computer scientist says artificial intelligence will surpass humans’ in 2050, enabling robots to have fun, fall in love – and colonise the galaxy." WT 298-607

Speculist Essentials, Best of TWT May 02, 2017

Phil, Stephen, and Michael D. discuss "Speculist Essentials." What have been the key influences towards developing our unusual outlook on the future? Each host plus audience members named one item in each of the following categories that has had the most impact on them as Speculists: Movie or TV show Fiction book Nonfiction book Website Event Person [This show first aired June 2, 2008.]

Super Projects: A Billion Oysters, a Time Machine, and a Cure for Aging May 01, 2017

The Billion Oyster Project The Billion Oyster Project (BOP) is a long-term, large-scale plan to restore one billion live oysters to New York Harbor over the next twenty years and in the process train thousands of young people in New York City to care for their marine environment. Physicists Just Came Up With a Mathematical Model for a Viable Time Machine Physicists have come up with what they claim is a mathematical model of a theoretical "time machine" - a box that can move backwards and forwards through time and space. The trick, they say, is to use the curvature of space-time in the Universe to bend time into a circle for hypothetical passengers sitting in the box, and that circle allows them to skip into the future and the past. Google is super secretive about its anti-aging research. No one knows why. Researchers are puzzled by Calico’s stealthiness and say it’s not good for science. I asked everyone I could about Calico — and quickly learned that it’s an impenetrable fortress. Among the little more than a dozen press releases Calico has put out, there were only broad descriptions of collaborations with outside labs and pharmaceutical companies — most of them focused on that overwhelmingly vague mission of researching aging and associated diseases. The media contacts there didn’t so much as respond to multiple requests for interviews. WT 297-606

Thomas Frey and the Future of Wealth Apr 28, 2017

Thomas Frey joins Phil and Stephen in a discussion about the future of wealth. First off, a story with a provocative title You are Richer than John D. Rockefeller This raises some interesting questions: Would you trade your lifestyle today for Rockefeller's 1917 lifestyle? Would you trade your lifestyle today for the lifestyle of someone at the bottom of the economic stack 100 years from now? Would it make a difference if you could SEE that future first? Next we have the concept of demonetization from Peter Diamandis Demonetized Cost of Living Diamandis talks about early efforts to implement Basic Income, then raises an interesting question: will such schemes be necessary on a large scale if everything is free? Related, we have been talking with Brian Wang of Next Big Future about his idea for Basic Power to lift the developing world out of poverty. Diamandis specifically talks about the demonetization of basic lifestyle stuff: Transportation Food Healthcare Housing Energy Education Entertainment Could these all ever become free? Or will they just be massively cheaper than they are today? Plus: Thomas joins the guys for a very special OTHER GEEK! WT 296-605

Is Time Travel Possible? Best of TWT Apr 27, 2017

Phil and Stephen discuss whether time travel is possible, including serious (?) efforts to achieve it. Memorial Day Weekend Will the LHC Enable Time Travel? Or end the world?* Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull The Phoenix landing on Mars Physicist Ronald Mallett is trying to build a time machine. Seriously. Michael Darling sends this article, "Visitors From the Future due This Year." Hope on the Horizon from MIT News [This show first aired May 26 2008] *Hey, this was several years ago!

Thomas Frey and the Future of Retail Apr 26, 2017

World-renowned futurist Thomas Frey joins Phil and Stephen in a discussion of the future of retail. What comes after the shopping mall?Is transitory and even mobile retail the future of shopping?Will windshields and tires replace brick and mortar?How will future retail experiences by tailored to the shoppers wants and needs?What role will virtual reality and augmented reality technologies play? Tune in and explore! About our Guest Thomas Frey has been called both the “father of invention” and the “dean of Futurists” He writes and speaks on topics related to the future for both the private and public sector all over the world and is frequently featured in major media outlets as one of the leading thinkers about the future, how it will impact us, and how we can prepare for it. WT 295-604

Technology Roadmap for Productive Nanosystems, Best of TWT Apr 25, 2017

A panel discussion on the Technology Roadmap for Productive Nanosystems. goo.gl/e7R1Gv Underpinning most discussions about nanotechnology are two driving questions: 1. When will we see widespread implementation of technologies built at the molecular level? 2. How will we get there? The Roadmap for Productive Nanosystems outlines the research pathways required to achieve atomically precise manufacturing, providing a good starting answer to the second question, as well helping us to clarify our thinking about the first. Over a period of three years, working groups made up of over 70 research scientists, nanotechnology theorists, and business leaders collaborated to create a common framework for understanding and defining these multidisciplinary research pathways. Panelists: Christine Peterson David Forrest Pearl Chin [This show first aired 05/18/2008.]

Hadoop and the Future of Big Data Apr 24, 2017

Data industry guru and analyst John Myers joins Phil Bowermaster for a discussion about the future of big data. Is big data, and Apache Hadoop in particular, experiencing some kind of existential crisis? Has Hadoop "failed us?" John describes how the crisis may be one of mismatched expectations, explaining that Hadoop is free in the same way that free puppy is free. Moreover, while Hadoop addresses the addresses the major challenges of the big data era, it does not automatically solve the myriad other data management problems that data warehouse and database systems have been addressing for years. So is Hadoop over, or is it just getting started? And what does the future of Hadoop have to tell us about the future of big data, and therefore the future of everything else? Tune in and explore. About Our Guest John Myers has nearly 20 years of experience in areas related to business analytics and business intelligence in professional services, sales consulting, product management, industry analysis and research. John is a frequent contributor to industry publications including Search Business Analytics, Inside Analysis and Information Management. He speaks internationally on the topics of telecom analytics, data virtualization and Big Data. John has been previously named as one of the Top 100 Big Data Influencers. He is a Managing Research Director of Business Intelligence and Analytics Practice with EMA. WT 294-603

Ending Poverty: Multiple Approaches Apr 21, 2017

Brian Wang joins hosts Phil Bowermaster and Stephen Gordon to check in on his concept of basic power -- a plan to provide solar energy to the world's poorest people. Then the guys review some other potential anti-poverty programs to see how they relate to basic power, including: Ikea's plan to lift 200,000 refugees out of poverty via employment. The new wind turbine that costs aboput the same as an iPhone but that can power a single house -- forever. The new solar-powered device than can draw three liters of water directly from the air each day. Are these ideas competitive or complementary? Tune in and explore. WT 293-602

Elon Musk, Mars, and the Gravitron Apr 19, 2017

Is Elon Musk working to build a colony on Mars that would provide earth-like gravity via massive spinning cities? At least one pundit believes that he is. Blogger David Kelly at transhumanity.net writes about how much of the prerequisite tech for Mars is being developed: Musk has the Fundamental Technology for a 1G Colony on Mars Host Stephen Gordon reviews the technologies that Musk iscurrently developing that support this argument SpaceX Manned launch soon? Also see here Hyperloop The Boring Company Solar City. (Solar and battery) Tesla. (Electric cars and self driving tech) Two prerequisite technologies that Musk is not working on: AI / Robotics 3D Printing WT 292-601

The Speculist Manifesto, Best of TWT Apr 18, 2017

The Human Imperative is improvement of the human condition. Throughout human (and pre-human) history, we have worked to increase human intelligence and capability. The Human Imperative is working. We have consistently improved our circumstances, and are making improvements at an accelerating pace. With improvements come new problems, but the improvements are outpacing the problems. Moreover, improvements are additive and we can combine them in creative ways to provide unexpected benefits. Throughout human history, we have carried out the Human Imperative using two basic strategies: 1. Solving problems / mitigating risks 2. Achieving the good The first strategy has always taken priority, as the primary ongoing problem we have had to solve is how to achieve our survival (or prevent our extinction.) But we now stand on the threshold of a new era in human history. Improvements and potential improvements are increasing exponentially; we are moving rapidly towards a critical mass of human intelligence and capability. Our achievable future is one that transcends the expectations, hopes, or even dreams of most of humanity. We can achieve that future only by recognizing that we are at a transitional point in carrying out the Human Imperative. We must transform our thinking about the future and, for the first time, change the order of our priorities. While survival remains our top priority, we must recognize that focusing on problems and risks is no longer our optimal strategy for achieving our survival. Our survival lies within the realization of our achievable good. The Human Imperative is now to recognize that transcendent good as possible, to communicate and share a vision of it, and to work towards its fulfillment. [This show first aired 05/05/2008.]

World Transformed 600th Show: A Celebration Apr 17, 2017

Phil and Stephen celebrate their 600th show with a roundup of amazing futuristic news. How the Ancient 'Method of Loci' Can Improve Your Long-Term Memory Nasa announces one of Saturn's moons could support alien life in our solar system Engineers Just Submitted an Incredible Proposal to Turn the US Border Wall Into a Hyperloop Inmates built computers hidden in ceiling, connected them to prison network Physicists Say They've Created a Fluid With 'Negative Mass' Creativity will be the source of our next industrial revolution, not machines Our brains are wired to predict the future — but it might be holding us back Google AI Just Beat Human Pathologists at Detecting Cancer 7 Steps For Inventing The Future Second anti-aging pill that extends lifespans by a quarter heads to human trials Quantum Computing is Going Commercial “Love drugs” will soon be a reality. But should we take them? Transhumanism Is Just Fancy Sex-Shaming And Self-Loathing The Futures Cone, use and history WT 291-600

The Golden Age: Latest Developments Apr 14, 2017

Phil and Stephen explore news stories that indicate we are, indeed, living in a golden age. Goldman Sachs: space-mining for platinum is 'more realistic than perceived' Goldman Sachs is bullish on space mining with "asteroid-grabbing spacecraft." In a 98-page note for clients seen by Business Insider, analyst Noah Poponak and his team argue that platinum mining in space is getting cheaper and easier, and the rewards are becoming greater as time goes by. HumanCharger: Sun in Your Pocket Invented in Finland, HumanCharger® is a bright light therapy device that has a unique and patented mechanism of action which stimulates the photosensitive proteins on the surface of the brain using a calibrated white light that passes through the ear canals. Using the HumanCharger® for only 12 minutes a day can significantly increase your energy levels, improve mood and increase your mental alertness. Doctors 3D Printed a Replacement for This Woman’s Damaged Spine Docors in India replaced a woman's damaged vertebrae with a 3D-printed titanium copy during a 10-hour surgery that was the first of its kind in the nation. Graphene-based sieve turns seawater into drinking water A UK-based team of researchers has created a graphene-based sieve capable of removing salt from seawater. OTHER GEEK LA Tech takes their mascot to the edge of space! WT 290-599

Jim Elvidge, The Universe — Solved! Best of TWT Apr 13, 2017

Jim discusses his book, The Universe — Solved! What if reality isn't really what you think it is? What if our world was just a big video game? It's actually not as far-fetched as it seems, says Jim Elvidge. Within 30 years, we will be able to create virtual environments indistinguishable from our reality. Within a few more decades, even physical realities will be manufactured. And we are marching toward an inevitable merge with machines. What's more, it is actually impossible to tell whether or not we have already reached that point. An expert in complex computational systems, with over 20 years of research in cosmology, quantum mechanics, philosophy, anomalies, and futurism, Jim Elvidge presents a theory of reality so perfect, so powerful, that it explains all known scientific and cultural anomalies. Why is the universe so perfectly designed to support life and matter? Why does life feel like it is accelerating? Why do people see UFOs? Is there life after death? The evidence is actually all around us, within us, and present in every decision we make. This book may completely change the way you look at your world, your life, your friends and family, and the PC on your desk. [This show first aired April 28, 2008. It is the first appearance of Jim Elvidge on the World Transformed.]

The Golden Age: Why Don’t We See it? Apr 12, 2017

Phil and Stephen explore why negativity and pessimism not only persist but remain dominant in a time of tremendous technological and social progress. News stories discussed: Why can’t we see that we’re living in a golden age? Pessimism resonates. A YouGov poll found that just 5 per cent of Britons think that the world, all things considered, is getting better. You would think that the chronically cheerful Americans might be more optimistic — well, yes, 6 per cent of them think that the world is improving. More Americans believe in astrology and reincarnation than in progress. Want To Be Happier And More Successful? Learn To Like Other People Research suggests that the best self-help advice may have very little to do with yourself. Nevertheless, most self-improvement strategies focus too much on the person who’s trying to do the improving. Much of the time, the same outcomes you’re trying to achieve by changing your own habits, attitudes, and behaviors depend on how you view other people. In an age of robots, schools are teaching our children to be redundant WT 289-598

Past Futures and Weird Futures, Best of TWT Apr 11, 2017

[This show first aired April 21 2008. The live program experienced technical difficulties, some of which have been edited out.] Phil Bowermaster, Stephen Gordon, and Michael Darling discuss weird ideas about the future... both past-futures that turned out to be bizarrely wrong and very strange futures that may turn out to be right. Topics: The topics: General Motors 1939 New York World's Fair Futurama Exhibit And here's a video of that exhibit at Youtube. What many often call futurism, is more properly known as Futurology.

The Return of the Sexy Immortal Billionaires with Superpowers Apr 10, 2017

Phil and Stephen review negative reactions to the idea of Sexy Immortal Billionaires with Superpowers story and discuss what it means and why it's probably it’s right. Super humans who are sexier, stronger and smarter will arrive by 2029 as brains begin to fuse with machines, Google expert claims Kurzweil says when we live in a cybernetic society we will have computers in our brains and machines will be smarter than human beings. He claims this is already happening with technology - especially with our addiction to our phones - and says the next step is to wire this technology into our brains So what does the phrase Sexy Immortal Billionaires with Superpowers really means? Is it reasonable to assume that in the near future most people will be: Superpowered Beings? Immortal? Sexy? Billionaires? Tune in and learn why the surprising answer is YES. WT 288-597

Engines of Disruption: How Data Is Changing Everything Apr 07, 2017

What does it mean to say that data is changing everything? Is the world really turning into data? Or maybe it’s better to ask whether we are turning the world into data. And if we are…is it a good idea? How will we like living in a world that is more “bit” than “it?” Today we are witnesses to, and participants in, one of the most disruptive transformations in history. This is not just the era of Big Data, or of Real-Time Data, or of Digital Transformation, or of Deep Learning. What is going on around us transcends the buzzwords. Data is becoming more central to everything we do and, as explored in the pages that follow, to everything we are. Are we ready for such fundamental changes occurring so rapidly? And if not, how can we make ourselves ready? Let’s begin by exploring some of the possibilities. Host Phil Bowermaster discusses his new book, Engines of Disruption: How Data Is Changing Everything, which addresses these issues. Available here. WT 287-596

Mammal-Free Diets and Soylent Green: Future Ethics, Best of TWT Apr 06, 2017

[This show first aired 4/14/2008] Yuri's night. Phil got a little confused on the story of Gagarin's marriage. Gagarin was married to Valentina Goryacheva, not Valentina Tereshkova. Our Tales of the Paranormal section: "Mutants live in the underworld of Moscow."Phil is six months into his "No Mammals" diet. This is an ethical decision on his part. Stephen points out that low carb dieting would be incredibly hard without meat. Stephen agreed to try a mammal-free low carb diet and exercise program. But he suspects he will get tired of chicken and fish.We marked the passing of Charlton Heston with a quote from a certain dystopian sci-fi movie. Phil quoted Michael Anissimov: ...everyone will be a vegan soon, if for nothing else, that in vitro meat will be better and cheaper.

You Are Now Free to Move About the Solar System Apr 05, 2017

Phil and Stephen ask the question: has the space age truly begun? SpaceX makes aerospace history with successful launch and landing of a used rocket After more than two years of landing its rockets after launch, SpaceX finally sent one of its used Falcon 9s back into space. The rocket took off from Cape Canaveral, Florida, this evening, sending a communications satellite into orbit, and then landed on one of SpaceX’s drone ships floating in the Atlantic Ocean. It was round two for this particular rocket, which already launched and landed during a mission in April of last year. But the Falcon 9’s relaunch marks the first time an orbital rocket has launched to space for a second time. SpaceX, In Another First, Recovers $6 Million Nose Cone From Reused Falcon 9 On Thursday, SpaceX successfully launched a previously-used rocket, a historic first that puts the company firmly on the path towards its promise of low-cost space flight. SpaceX CEO Elon Musk described the fairing recovery as “the cherry on the cake” of the reused rocket launch. How big a deal is this, really? How does a reusable rocket change the dynamics of commercial space development? Is a reusable rocket the killer app of commercially exploiting space? If so, why did we ever use disposable rockets? Related: was the space shuttle program anything more than a tragic near-miss? We weren’t reusing the most important part! Early Design Specs Show The Space Shuttle Could Have Been Much Cooler WT 286-595

Looking to the Far Future, Best of TWT Apr 04, 2017

[This program first aired April 7, 2008.] Topics: Here's the complete text of the H.G. Wells classic, The Time Machine.How will the MOSH ("mostly original substrate humans" - which means normal, unenhanced humans) fair in the future? Phil has published some thoughts.Michael Darling shares that the Star Trek:TNG episode "Ship in a Bottle" is his favorite.Stephen is impressed with his new iPod Touch. In addition to being a music/movie player, it's a wifi device. You can download music directly from iTunes without a computer. It's got a direct link to Youtube and google maps. You can get your email. It's the iPhone without the phone.Stephen believes that the best answer to the Fermi Paradox is that we are, probably, the only intelligent life in this galaxy. George Dvorsky has a great blog post on the subject.On the other hand, Phil may have found extraterrestrial life in his own backyard.

True Stories: News Not Dated April 1st Apr 03, 2017

Phil and Stephen discuss news that is strange, but absolutely true. Plunging price of renewable energy makes end of fossil fuels inevitable, says report And it highlighted prediction that generation costs for large-scale solar power plants were expected to drop by a massive 57 per cent by 2025, with onshore and offshore wind expected to become 26 and 35 per cent respectively. Bees swarm infield during Rockies-Padres spring training game Anti-Ageing Drug Could Be Available To Buy In Just Three Years ...team at the University of New South Wales has identified a critical step in the molecular process and a key metabolite, NAD+, which has a central role as a regulator in protein-to-protein interactions that control repair to our DNA. ‘Your animal life is over. Machine life has begun.’ The road to immortality At some point, you become aware that you are no longer present in your body. Plus one story that was dated April 1: DeepMind Solves AGI, Summons Demon WT 285-594

Let Us Eat Cake: Time to Get Happy Again Mar 31, 2017

Phil and Stephen offer remedies to the happiness shortage Happiness is on the wane in the US, UN global report finds Whole-body vibration may be as effective as regular exercise Mayo Clinic discovers high-intensity aerobic training can reverse aging Being Lazy Is the Key to Success, According to the Best-Selling Author of 'Moneyball' "Do as little as possible, and that unwillingly, because it is better to receive a slight reprimand than perform an arduous task." Research Shows That Eating Chocolate Cake For Breakfast Is Good For The Brain And The Waistline And the Big Story Visions for a World Transformed Now Available in Paperback WT 284-593

Wayne Radinsky and Future Salons, Best of TWT Mar 30, 2017

[This show first aired March 30 2008.] Futurist Wayne Radinsky explains the importance of future salons. Wayne became a futurist in 1997 when he was working as a software developer and asked the question, "Why does Moore's Law happen?" Wayne was part of the Bay Area Future Salon in Silicon Valley for five years before moving to Colorado and starting the Boulder Future Salon. He is also a director of the Global Futures Network. In the show Wayne talks about about how groups such as GFN and futures salons can help us to shape both our understanding of and expectations for the future.

Big Future Now! (It’s Really Happening) Mar 29, 2017

Phil and Stephen discuss world-transforming changes that are occurring right now Ray Kurzweil claims singularity will happen by 2045 (An update to last week's confusion about whether Kurzweil has changed his prediction.) Future ‘lightwave’ computers could run 100,000 times faster Using extremely short pulses of teraHertz (THz) radiation instead of electrical currents could lead to future computers that run ten to 100,000 times faster than today’s state-of-the-art electronics, according to an international team of researchers, writing in the journal Nature Photonics. Transcranial alternating current stimulation used to boost working memory Molecule kills elderly cells, reduces signs of aging in mice Join us! WT 283-592

What's the Brain For? Best of TWT Mar 28, 2017

[This show first aired March 24, 2008.] What;s the brain for? Why is the brain the way it is? What can we do with it that we haven't thought about before? Stephen Gordon and Michael Darling discuss all things brain: The Adult brain cells stop growing myth New findings about the brain lead to treatment for eating disturbances Hack your brain Virus Infection Battles Brain Cancer Single brain cell's power shown Tiny Brain-Like Computer Created Meditation Found To Increase Brain Size Brain Scanner Can Tell What You're Looking At Brain-Computer Interfaces for Manipulating Dreams

Risky Business: Watching Your Step in the Digital Age Mar 27, 2017

Phil and Stephen examine different kinds of risks that technology enables. A Lithuanian phisher tricked two big US tech companies into wiring him $100 million The scammer, 48-year-old Evaldas Rimasauskas, did so by masquerading as a prominent Asian hardware manufacturer, according to court documents, and tricking employees into depositing tens of millions of dollars into bank accounts in Latvia, Cyprus, and numerous other countries. New App Lets You Find Strangers on Facebook Just By Taking Their Picture Next time you pass by a sexy stranger, rather than imagining her identity or fanciful ideas of your future life together, simply snap her photo and track down her Facebook. Hey, it's not creepy or invasive at all! What’s the Harm: the Body Count of Pseudoscience 3 million people die every year from vaccine-preventable diseases (though this number could potentially rise as new vaccines are developed for diseases such as malaria). 1.5 million are children under the age of five. WT 282-591

Thomas Frey and Epiphany Z, Part 2 Mar 24, 2017

Hosts Phil Bowermaster and Stephen Gordon welcome futurist Thomas Frey back to the World Transformed to discuss his new book: Epiphany Z: 8 Radical Visions for Transforming Your Future. Topics: What is epiphany Z? 12 Laws of the future. Optimizing purpose. Optimizing learning. Optimizing our tools. Optimizing systems. Optimizing government Optimizing infrastructure. Optimizing ourselves. Three laws of exponential capabilities What should we reasonably expect for humanity for the near term? For the long term? Learn more about Thomas Frey and his work at The Davinci Institute and at Futurist Speaker. Join us! Listen to Part 1. WT 281-590

Michael Anissimov Transhumanist Philsophy, Best of TWT Mar 23, 2017

[This show first aired March 17, 2008.] Michael Anissimov discusses transhumanism and its philosophical underpinnings. "Transhumanism as Simplified Humanism" – Eliezer Yudkowsky Stephen mentioned the (very) short story he wrote about Leon Kass. It is titled "The Treatment." "One of the biggest flaws in the common conception of the future is that the future is something that happens to us, not something we create." - Michael Anissimov This quote was first published here at The Speculist and was reprinted in Kurzweil's The Singularity is Near. Michael Anissimov pointed us to both the A.I. Panic! blog and to the Lifeboat Foundation.

Thomas Frey and Epiphany Z, Part 1 Mar 23, 2017

Hosts Phil Bowermaster and Stephen Gordon welcome futurist Thomas Frey back to the World Transformed to discuss his new book: Epiphany Z: 8 Radical Visions for Transforming Your Future. Topics: What is epiphany Z? 12 Laws of the future. Optimizing purpose. Optimizing learning. Optimizing our tools. Optimizing systems. Optimizing government Optimizing infrastructure. Optimizing ourselves. Three laws of exponential capabilities What should we reasonably expect for humanity for the near term? For the long term? Learn more about Thomas Frey and his work at The Davinci Institute and at Futurist Speaker. Join us! Listen to Part 2. WT 281-590

Ben Goertzel on the Future of AI, Best of TWT Mar 21, 2017

[This show first aired March 20, 2008.] Ben Goertzel joins Stephen Gordon and PJ Manney for a discussion of the future of AI. Dr. Ben Goertzel is the CEO/CSO of Novemente LLC. He's been working 20+ yrs in AI R&D and commercialization. He is a former CTO of 120+ employee, thinking machine company, Webmind. He earned his PhD in mathematics from Temple University. He has held several university positions in mathematics, computer science, and psychology in the US, New Zealand and Australia. He is the author of 70+ research papers, journalistic articles, and eight scholarly books dealing with topics in cognitive sciences and futurism. He is the principle architect of the Novamente Cognition Engine. And he is the Director of Research for the Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence. He came to us fresh off the first annual AGI conference at the University of Memphis which he was instrumental in organizing. The importance of Friendly AI. Goertzel believes that empathy involves the ability to simulate other minds. His thought is that if an AI is given the capacity to do this that is greater-than-human, then it will be more empathetic-than-human - a super friendly AI. Goertzel wisely refrained from making any absolute predictions on the arrival of human-level AGI. He did state that if the field had unlimited money he wouldn't be surprised if it could be done in 5 years. With limited funding it might take 20 years. If you haven't seen it, don't miss the 2001 BBC documentary Predicting AI's Future.

The Singularity is Ever Nearer Mar 21, 2017

Phil and Stephen consider whether humanity is about to enter a new historical epoch. Quick recap, singularity defined: The Singularity is an era in which our intelligence will become increasingly nonbiological and trillions of times more powerful than it is today—the dawning of a new civilization that will enable us to transcend our biological limitations and amplify our creativity. Is the world fundamentally changing along these or other lines? Developments to consider: It Begins: Bots Are Learning to Chat in Their Own Language The world’s next great leap forward: Towards the end of poverty Mark Cuban: The world’s first trillionaire will be an artificial intelligence entrepreneur A Google Exec Just Claimed the Singularity Will Happen by 2029 WT 280-589

Lights in the Sky: Metal Asteroids, Big Rockets, and Aliens? Mar 17, 2017

Hosts Phil Bowermaster and Stephen Gordon review interesting developments in space exploration and development. Scientists claim to have found language of ancient Indus civilisation Blue Origin releases details of its monster orbital rocket After months of speculation, Blue Origin finally released more details about its New Glenn rocket on Tuesday. The 82-meter-tall rocket will have the capacity to lift 45 tons to low Earth orbit and an impressive 13 tons to geostationary transfer orbit. Why is NASA going to visit the giant metal asteroid 16 Psyche? Psyche's stand-out feature is that it is made almost entirely of metal. Could Mysterious Cosmic Light Flashes Be Powering Alien Spacecraft? Bizarre flashes of cosmic light may actually be generated by advanced alien civilizations, as a way to accelerate interstellar spacecraft to tremendous speeds, a new study suggests. OTHER GEEK Shia Laboef performance art WT 279-588

Many Uses of AI, Best of TWT Mar 16, 2017

[This show first aired March 3, 2008] Phil and Stephen discuss whether self-driving cars would need to possess AGI. Armed robots: The world has already had its first armed robot accident. 9 were killedand 14 wounded in South Africa.University of Sheffield professor Noel Sharkey warns that terrorists could capture a US built SWORDS robot, reverse engineer it, and use it against us. Stephen is skeptical. He thinks its much more likely that terrorists will improvise a robot to carry an improvised explosive device. They could just duct tape an IED to a model RC car. A true robot arms race will require super powers Stephen wonders whether armed conflict will be more acceptable in the future. Today war costs "blood and treasure." If, in the future the cost is "treasure" only - because its robots fighting robots - will we fight more?Will we fight more just because its cool? What if we're fighting Gundam mechas?There's already an AI "arms race" in the financial services industry. Cut throat hedge fund AI's might not be the best bet for "friendly AI." It's important that we have the right kind of Singularity.Which comes first, human regeneration of missing limbs, or the Luke Skywalker fully realistic fully usable prosthetic?

Brain Weirdness: Knowledge Uploads, Quantum Consciousness, Back from the Dead Mar 15, 2017

Hosts Phil Bowermaster and Stephen Gordon explore a collection of brain stories that are just this side of “Tales of the Paranormal.” Brain activity appears to continue after people are dead, according to new study Brain activity may continue for more than 10 minutes after the body appears to have died, according to a new study. Scientists get the green light to resurrect the dead with stem cells Scientists discover how to 'upload knowledge to your brain' Scientists say your “mind” isn’t confined to your brain, or even your body Quantum consciousness, quantum mysticism, and transhumanist engineering Quantum consciousness research and “quantum mysticism” speculations are considered as weird & cranky “pseudoscience” by the bureaucrats of science, but I think they will spawn awesome forms of transhumanist engineering. WT 278-587

FastForward Radio Oscar Edition, Best of TWT Mar 14, 2017

[This show first aired February 25, 2008.] Phil Bowermaster, Stephen Gordon, and PJ Manney discuss movies and the future. How memes, like "Americans are stupid," stick around regardless of their truth. They were surprised that some Americans object to nanotech for moral reasons. They wondered whether people have confused nanotech with embryonic stem cell research, or whether people are afraid of grey goo. On the bright side, Americans are less afraid of GM food than Europeans. Contact lenses with circuits, lights could be a possible platform for superhuman vision. Animal testing is ongoing. Phil and Stephen agree that the possibilities are wide open for this technology. Phil wondered which comes first, HUD contact lenses or self-driving cars. Stephen thinks that both technologies are imminent and will be complementary. Speaking of self-driving cars, Stephen enjoyed the new Knight Rider pilot. Good cheesy fun. By the way, that was Val Kilmer playing the voice of the new K.I.T.T. Stephen just introduced his kids to ET: The Extra Terrestrial and Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Phil got to see 2001: A Space Odyssey on the big screen. Phil's daughter's response was pretty much "what the heck was that?" VW is coming out with a diesel hybrid. Stephen is especially excited about this development. They just need to offer a diesel plug-in hybrid. The picture at the top of this post is the VW Vortex concept that Michael Darling mentioned. It gets 235mpg and has a carbon fiber body.

Breakthrough Computing Technologies: AI and Quantum Computers Mar 13, 2017

Hosts Phil Bowermaster and Stephen Gordon review recent developments in AI and quantum computing. AI’s PR Problem It might be easy to mistake the drumbeat of stories about machines besting us at tasks as evidence that these tools are growing ever smarter—but that’s not happening. Bill Gates: This Will Be the Biggest Technological Breakthrough of Our Lifetime “the big milestone is when computers can read and understand information like humans do.” The future of AI is neuromorphic. Meet the scientists building digital 'brains' for your phone “Imagine a SIRI that listens and sees all of your conversations and interactions...” IBM to build quantum computers, selling machines millions of times faster than anything made before IBM has taken its first step towards selling computers that are millions of times faster than the one you're reading this on. The Race to Sell True Quantum Computers Begins Before They Really Exist WT 277-586

The Chinese Super-Fleet: a World that Might Have Been Mar 11, 2017

Hosts Phil Bowermaster and Stephen Gordon imagine a what-if world in which 15th-century China did not abandon its naval dominance 500 years ago, China destroyed its world-dominating navy because its political elite was afraid of free trade In the 1400s, China owned the greatest seagoing fleet in the world, up to 3,500 ships at its peak. (The U.S. Navy today has only 430). Some of them were five times the size of the ships being built in Europe at the time. What if they hadn’t? -- Chinese-settled Americas? -- Chinese-colonized Africa? -- Chinese-controlled and dominated Europe? -- Or world war much sooner? BREAKING: Elon Musk And SpaceX Are Sending Humans to the Moon The space company said in a statement that the two individuals have “already paid a significant deposit” to do a Moon mission. Initial training, along with health and fitness tests, are set to occur later this year, SpaceX continued. OTHER GEEK Finally talk some Rogue One WT 276-585

Risks: Rational and Otherwise, Best of TWT Mar 10, 2017

[This show first aired February 11, 2008.] When risk is irrational: The EU is banning GM food.Recycling is important for the environment. But if the United States tried to adopt a system as onerous as the system in Sweden, there'd be the risk of a backlash. Phil recommends recycling our waste to make fuel.When making fuel, particularly ethanol, we have to beware the risk of unintended consequences. This week we learned that using food to make ethanol pushes corn production to places like Brazil where rain forests are slashed and burned. Counting that, the study argues, more carbon is released with corn ethanol than gasoline.Gilgamesh was said to be 2/3rds devine, 1/3 human. Phil wondered how that parentage was possible. Well, now its possible for embryos to come from 3 or any number of parents. What are the risks of designer babies? To the baby? To society?Existential risk - the various risks that our species could be wiped out.Stephen considered existential risks awhile back and thinks unfriendly AI might be the biggest risk.

Ancient Martian Fossils, Self-growing Computers, and Flowers that Cure Cancer Mar 09, 2017

Hosts Phil Bowermaster and Stephen Gordon review amazing developments in a variety of scientific and technological fields Oldest Fossil Ever Found on Earth Shows that Alien Life on Mars “Likely” It’s life, but not as we know it. The oldest fossil ever discovered on Earth shows that organisms were thriving 4.2 billion years ago, hundreds of millions of years earlier than previously thought. University of Windsor lab uses compound inspired by spider lily to kill cancer cells A University of Windsor lab has successfully used a compound inspired by a flower to target and kill cancer. Scientists reveal new super-fast form of computer that 'grows as it computes' Researchers from The University of Manchester have shown it is possible to build a new super-fast form of computer that "grows as it computes". WT 275-584

Super Speculist Sunday, Best of TWT Mar 08, 2017

[This show first aired February 3, 2008.] "The M Report." Michael Darling spoke about the dream of fusion power and the need to pursue Robert Bussard's reactor design. Bussard's model is significantly different from the Tokamak design. We're hoping that we push toward fusion purposefully, rather than hope for an accidental breakthrough as with AIDS in Nairobi. Astounding Science Facts: All blue eyed people are decended from a single individual who had mutant eyes.Astronomers have found a spiral galaxy that is rotating in two different directions. The inner part is rotating clockwise and the outer part is rotating counter-clockwise. How did this happen?Stephen thinks jet packs are cool. But if you want to strap something to your back and go flying, try powered paragliding. Its safer and cheaper.

Revisiting the Robot Good News / Bad News Mar 07, 2017

Hosts Phil Bowermaster and Stephen Gordon debate whether AI and automation represent a coming economic boom or meltdown Which story gets ir right? Robots won't just take our jobs – they'll make the rich even richer Building Human-Level A.I. Will Require Billions of People Scenarios for how this might play out Robots take all the jobs (first article) Government pays UBIUBI funded by tax on machines Alternative Government apportions robot ownership to populationRobot tax paid to populace as dividends on robot profits AI creates huge opportunity for people to train AI (second article) Maybe this is the beginning oh how we merge with the machines ?Universal Basic Robots AI is open sourced and made available to anyone who wants to use itComputer and internet technology continue to be more widely available ?Universal Basic Abundance As we get chummier with the robots, we drive them towards being agents of post-scarcityUniversal access to the means of producing food and any material goods from raw materials WT 274-583

Don't Fear the Robots! (Or Should We?) Mar 04, 2017

Hosts Phil Bowermaster and Stephen Gordon discuss positive and worrying trends related to artificial intelligence Reinforcement Learning Related: Playing Atari with Deep Reinforcement Learning Fear Not the Robots - Jobs Aren't Scarce The flip-side of the scarcity proposition, one that economists and others usually ignore, is that limitless consumption desires, relative to productive resources, means the number of tasks for people to do is also limitless. Jobs aren’t scarce! They are limitless as sure as consumption desires relative to productive resources are limitless. The notion that there is a fixed number of tasks or jobs to do at any point in time is bogus. Ditto for the notion that job opportunities can fall. A community’s economic ladder always has more rungs to climb. Virtual assistant Hound can make you an espresso while it reads your football scores OTHER GEEK Updates on Space and books on Audible WT 273-582

What Is Transhumanism? Panel Discussion, Best of TWT Mar 03, 2017

[This show first aired January 28, 2008.] What is transhumanism?We all agreed that we need more kids interested in science. Some good programs that are already working toward this goal are: Knowledge Context, andFIRST. FIRST stands for For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology.Dean Kamen is trying to bring an invention to market that would produce clean drinking water for the poorest people in the world. The problem - he's having trouble getting investors.The panel talked about blade runner Oscar Pistorius as an example of a person who can function better than normal human. Check out the video of this runner at the link.

Human Lifespan X 10 (and Other Amazing Stories) Mar 02, 2017

Hosts Phil Bowermaster and Stephen Gordon celebrate Amazing Wednesday --- and Future Day! -- with some very encouraging developments Endless nuclear power can be found in the seas A new technique makes it more feasible to extract trace uranium from the ocean. With $294M, Kamen Hopes to Bring Regenerative Medicine “Up to Scale” In December, the U.S. Department of Defense announced that Kamen, an Xconomist, would be helping to lead a coalition of 87 businesses, academic institutions, and other organizations in an effort to advance regenerative medicine and tissue engineering. The Math That Shows Humans Could Live Ten Times Longer A new model shows that evolution has programmed us to die—and that reprogramming isn’t off the table. Join us! WT 272-581

Star Trek Tech, Best of TWT Mar 01, 2017

[This show first aired January 21, 2008.] Stephen Gordon and Michael Darling discuss the emergence of Star Trek technology in the world today. Topics: Methuseleh Yeast. Do we have a "Wondering Ecuadorian?" Was Nikola Tesla a time traveler? The Star Trek technologies that are now becoming real world inventions. Growing new organs that are a perfect match for patients by using protein scaffolding in the shape of the organ and the patient's own progenitor cells. It's the Chia heart! We're witnessing a race to bring plug-in hybrid vehicles to market. Today's nonplugin's have environmentally unfriendly nickel cadmium batteries. The plug-ins will have safe Lithium Ion batteries.

Back to the Moon (and on to the Stars) Feb 28, 2017

Hosts Phil Bowermaster and Stephen Gordon discuss recent big news touching on space exploration. Is a return to the moon imminent? Nasa discovers new solar system TRAPPIST-1 - where life may have evolved on three planets Life may have evolved on at least three planets within a newly discovered solar system that is 39 light years from Earth, it was announced last night. How to Get Back to the Moon in 4 Years--This Time to Stay Who is able to land on the lunar surface? Elon Musk and Robert Bigelow. Musk’s rockets—the Falcon and the soon-to-be-launched Falcon Heavy—are built to take off and land. So far their landing capabilities have been used to ease them down on earth. Space Startups Are Booming in the Mojave Desert Inside a series of nondescript buildings in the driest desert in North America, an entrepreneurial enclave is chasing the next frontier of commerce. WT 271-580

How Elon Musk Can Become More Interesting Feb 25, 2017

Phil and Stephen provide unsolicited advice to Elon Musk. Elon Musk Is Really Boring Elon Musk: Humans must merge with machines or become irrelevant in AI age AI will make life meaningless, Elon Musk warns OTHER GEEK Phil finally saw Arrival -- spoiler-laden review Stephen and family saw Lego Batman Stephen and sons finished (almost) a project he started in 2004: building his own arcade cabinet. WT 270-579

The $2500 Car, Best of TWT Feb 24, 2017

[This show first aired January 13, 2008.] The topics: Adding hours to the day. Can we do without sleep?The $2,500 carBIG NEWS! Sirtris has completed their human trials of a life extension drug with positive results. They are hopeful that this drug can be brought to the market by 2012. If so, then Stephen's 2004 prediction that the first generation of life extension drugs would arrive by 2014 will be correct.MRI mind reading.We got into a discussion of the new Terminator television series: Sarah Connor Chronicles.Review of "Water Horse."The Pillars of the Earth.

New Space Race Plus Pizza-Delivering and Tax-Paying Robots Feb 23, 2017

Phil and Stephen review a grab-bag of future-facing news. Uber CEO predicts humanoid robots will deliver pizza, AI chatbots to be in self-driving cars Trump administration investigating the large scale development of space with Spacex and Blue Origin likely big winners Bill Gates: the robot that takes your job should pay taxes McDonald's Re-Engineers Straw Using Fibonacci Formula To Let You Enjoy Shamrock Shake More WT 269-578

Tobias Buckell and Sly Mongoose, Best of TWT Feb 22, 2017

[This show first aired January 4 2008.] The topics: Tobis discusses his new novel, which has a very intriguing settingWe talked about the creative process in writing Sci-Fi, blogging, and in making movies.Zubrin's ideas from Energy Victory have made their way onto the national stage.A completely new way to get energy from the sun.If you haven't read Tobias Buckell, take his novels out for a test drive! The first 1/3 of his novels are available for free at his website.

The Hackable Human: Frontiers of Human Augmentation Feb 21, 2017

Phil and Stephen review current news indicating that the age of the hackable human is upon us. New Alzheimer’s Treatment Fully Restores Memory Function Australian researchers have come up with a non-invasive ultrasound technology that clears the brain of neurotoxic amyloid plaques - structures that are responsible for memory loss and a decline in cognitive function in Alzheimer’s patients. This Technology Could Finally Make Brain Implants Practical Outlawing microchipping humans not so far-fetched, Nevada senator says Senate Bill 109 would make it a Class C felony to require someone to be implanted with a radio frequency identifier, such as microchips placed in pets. George Church indicates reversal of aging will be a reality within ten years Join us WT 268-577

Basic Power: An Alternative to Basic Income? Feb 18, 2017

Brian Wang outlines a new idea that can accelerate the end of poverty worldwide. Brian's Basic Power plan would bring inexpensive, off-the-grid electricity to the world's poorest people, bringing obvious economic benefits to them and perhaps less obvious economic benefits to the world as a whole. About Our Guest: Brian Wang (MBA) is a business oriented futurist and writer of over 20000 articles on nextbigfuture.com. Where he has provided in-depth coverage and analysis of emerging and disruptive technology and trends. * He has provided annual reviews of developments in nanotechnology to Singularity University * He has worked with the Institute for the Future to help advise the city of Hong Kong on their future development * He has given a TEDx lecture on Energy. He has also advised and lectured at large corporations on Artificial Intelligence and automation and robotics. Plus he is a contributor to our new book: Visions for a World Transformed WT 268-577

The Difference Ten Years Makes, Best of TWT Feb 17, 2017

[This show originall aired January 31, 2007. My how things have changed! Check out this year in review from the end of FastForward Radio's first year if operation on Blogtalk Radio -- Actually we had only been up and running for about three months at this point Phil Bowermaster, PJ Manney, and Stephen Gordon discussed the technological developments of 2007 and their hopes for 2008 and beyond. What does a year in review show froma decade ago have to tell us about the way thiongs are now, and about the future? You might be surprised.

World Transformed Book Update (at Last!) Feb 16, 2017

Big news: The World Transformed Book is finished and will be available soon as a kindle eBook via Amazon. Phil and Stephen discuss What’s the book? How it started New title: Visions for a World Transformed What took so long? (Phil explains.) What’s in it? PLUS Phil and Stephen discuss interesting scenarios from the book, including: An explanation of why humanity needs to stop getting used to things sucking(Related:Thoughts on why everybody needs to lighten up,)How amusement parks can play a critical role in settling the moonHow self-driving cars will kill a lot of people – and why we should switch to them as soon as possibleWhy we need prizes for acceleration ALSO: Big plans for the book? We've got some! AND... a special Wednesday edition of OTHER GEEK! Join us WT 267-576

James Hughes on Democracy and Transhumanism, Best of TWT Feb 15, 2017

[This show originally aired 12/24/2007.] James Hughes' first appearance on FastForward Radio. Topics: James' workwith the World Transhumanist Association and the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies.How "sexy" became a tag line for James' radio show, Change Surfer Radio.We talked some about the disagreement that Hughes has had with Eliezer Yudkowsky. Hughes is less enthusiastic about friendly AI (Eliezer's primary interest) than human enhancement.Why transhumanists should be pro-democracy.How, in one sense, AI has been around for thousands of years. These ancient meta-intelligences might have something to say about how new AI's and transhumans develop.How Dr. Hughes takes issue with "The Army of Davids" approach from Glenn Reynolds. He argues, in essence, that we have the Davids, but not the army.How bio-conservatives on both the left and right are beginning to unite against transhumanism.How transhumanism differs around the world.What transhumanists may have in common with bio-conservatives.How mere environmentalism is not going to fix global warming - we should fix what we broke.

Drop Everything and Work on Artificial Intelligence Feb 14, 2017

Phil and Stephen discuss the coming of artificial general intelligence and what it could mean to each of us. Drop Everything and Work on Artificial Intelligence A panel discussion froma recent Foresight Insttitute event which included the following panelists David Yanofksy Steve Omohundro Osh Agabi Monica Anderson Peter Voss Michael Andregg Nothing: What Will Remain Uniquely Human In An Age Of AI AIs will become better and faster than unenhanced homo sapiens at nearly everything. Why imitate humans when we're so fraught with faults? Can't AI do better? It’s Already Too Late to Stop the Singularity Let’s just go ahead and address the question on everyone’s mind: will AI kill us? What is the negative potential of transhuman superintelligence? WT 266-575

Preventing the Economic Robot Apocalypse Feb 11, 2017

Phil Bowermaster and Stephen Gordon discuss the economic consequences of rampant utomation Chinese factory replaces 90% of human workers with robots. Production rises by 250%, defects drop by 80% According to Monetary Watch, the Changying Precision Technology Company focuses on the production of mobile phones and uses automated production lines. The factory used to be run by 650 employees, but now just 60 people get the entire job done... SHOP-POCALYPSE Amazon planning to open robotic supermarket staffed by just THREE humans, sources claim If you’re a robot stealing somebody’s job, it’s best to stay hidden. These 23 Principles Could Help Us Avoid an AI Apocalypse Relevant to our discussion: 10) Value Alignment 11) Human Values 14) Shared Benefit 15) Shared Prosperity OTHER GEEK What's on Netflix? WT 265-574

All Things Nanotech with P. J. Manney and Pearl Chin, Best of TWT Feb 10, 2017

[First Aired 12/17/2007] Stephen Gordon and PJ Manney speak with Dr. Pearl Chin of the Foresight Nanotech Institute. Pearl specializes in advising on nanotechnology investment opportunities. She is a prolific writer on nanotechnology investing, business, management and social issues. Her articles appear in Nanotechnology Now and the Nanotechnology Law and Business Journal. And she is actively sought out to speak about and be interviewed on diverse nanotechnology related topics.

Nikola Danylov and Conversations with the Future Feb 09, 2017

Nikola Danylov discusses his new book, Conversations with the Future. For generations, humanity stared at the vastness of the oceans and wondered, “What if?” Today, having explored the curves of the Earth, we now stare at endless stars and wonder, “What if?” Our technology has brought us to the make-or-break moment in human history. We can either grow complacent, and go extinct like the dinosaurs, or spread throughout the cosmos, as Carl Sagan dreamed of. For many years Nikola Danaylov has been interviewing the future and motivating people all over the world to embrace rather than fear it. "Conversations with the Future" was born from those interviews and Nik's unceasing need to explore "What If" with some of the most forward thinking visionaries in the world today. About Our Guest: Nik Danaylov is a Keynote Speaker, Futurist, Strategic Adviser, popular Blogger and Podcast host. His podcast, Singularity.FM, has had over 4 million views on iTunes and YouTube and has been featured on international TV networks as well as some of the biggest blogs in the world, such as BBC, ArteTV, TV Japan, io9, the Huffington Post, ZDNet, BoingBoing and others. Today Singularity Weblog is the biggest independent blog on related topics. The Singularity.FM podcast is the first, most popular and widely recognized interview series in the niche and, according to Prof. Roman Yampolskiy, Nikola has established himself as the “Larry King of the Singularity.” WT 264-573

Robert Zubrin and the Case for Mars, Best of TWT Feb 08, 2017

[This show first aired 12/10/2007.] Phil Bowermaster and Michael Sargent had the pleasure of chatting with Dr. Robert Zubrin. Dr. Zubrin is an aerospace engineer who is well known as an advocate for a manned mission to Mars and for his book The Case for Mars. After some unfortunate technical difficulties, Phil and Michael spoke with Robert about Mars and his newest book Energy Victory: Winning the War on Terror by Breaking Free of Oil.

Getting Closer to the Final Frontier: On to Mars and the Stars Feb 07, 2017

Hosts Phil Bowermaster and Stephen Gordon discuss colonizing Mars and exploring interstellar space. Trump may fund the Spacex Mars Colonization plan Elon Musk, the founder of SpaceX and Tesla, has made trips to Trump Tower. He met with Trump and the Washington Post has been reliably told, discussed Mars and public-private partnerships... How an Interstellar Starship Could Actually Explore Alpha Centauri As part of the Breakthrough Starshot Initiative, Milner plans to invest $100 million in an effort to develop an ultra-light autonomous lightsail that can be accelerated to one-fifth the speed of light (60,000 km/s, or 37,350 miles/s). At this ludicrous speed, a sail-driven robotic probe could reach Alpha Centauri—the closest star system to Earth—in just 20 years, as opposed to 100,000 years using traditional chemical thrusters. Breakthrough Starshot Initiative Breakthrough Starshot aims to demonstrate proof of concept for ultra-fast light-driven nanocrafts, and lay the foundations for a first launch to Alpha Centauri within the next generation. Along the way, the project could generate important supplementary benefits to astronomy, including solar system exploration and detection of Earth-crossing asteroids. Question asked: is this a foretaste of ad-hocracy? WT 263-572

Hydrogen Metal, Fractal Books, and Spacesuits Just Like in the Movies Feb 04, 2017

Hosts Phil Bowermaster and Stephen Gordon explore a grab-bag of future-related topics. Hydrogen turned into metal in stunning act of alchemy that could revolutionise technology and spaceflight Metallic hydrogen could theoretically revolutionise technology, enabling the creation of super-fast computers, high-speed levitating trains and ultra-efficient vehicles and dramatically improving almost anything involving electricity. Every meal triggers inflammation When we eat, we do not just take in nutrients – we also consume a significant quantity of bacteria. The body is faced with the challenge of simultaneously distributing the ingested glucose and fighting these bacteria. This triggers an inflammatory response that activates the immune systems of healthy individuals... Scientists find evidence of mathematical structures in classic books The academics put more than 100 works of world literature, by authors from Charles Dickens to ... OTHER GEEK NASA's New Astronaut Suits Are Straight Out of 2001: A Space Odyssey WT 262-571

Revenge of the Geeks, Best of TWT Feb 03, 2017

[This show first aired 12/02/2007.] PJ Manney's first appearance on Fastforward Radio / The World Transformed! Show highlights: Our Tales of the Paranormal feature is back. We learned that the "Association for the Study of Unexplained Phenomenon" is claiming to have a working "telephone to the dead."Does technology - the Internet, video games, etc. - does all that make us more or less empathetic?What does it mean to be a geek or a nerd? Is autism part of the picture?We listened to an excerpt from the pilot episode of CBS's new sitcom "The Big Bang Theory." Good news - the geeks are the heroes in that show.If you have a smart kid, do you praise the child for being smart or try to play it down?Lastly, we got a great story about PJ's Xena episode, "Is There a Doctor in the House?" PJ was too modest to mention it, but this episode is both a fan favorite and the favorite episode of Lucy Lawless.

What Will Things Be Like in Five Years? Feb 02, 2017

Hosts Phil Bowermaster and Stephen Gordon review predictions for the year 2022 and make a few of their own. IBM just posted 5 predictions about what life will be like in 2022 1. Thanks to AI, our speech will be a window into our mental health 2. Superhero vision will be possible with AI and powerful new devices 3. 'Macroscopes' will help us understand Earth's complexity in infinite detail 4. 'Labs on a chip' will revolutionise medicine 5. Smart sensors will detect environmental pollution faster than ever The Singularity is nearer: AI is learning to predict the future Related: Jeff Hawkins’s book On Intelligence lays out a thesis that intelligence basically means the ability to make predictions Scientists create new life form in a lab, altering the fundamentals of DNA Scientists have announced that they have created living organisms using an expanded genetic code. That could in turn lead to the creation of entirely new lifeforms, using combinations of DNA that couldn't possible have existed before. WT 261-570

Methuselah Mouse and Actuarial Escape Velocity, Best of TWT Feb 01, 2017

[This show first aired 11/26/2007.] David Gobel cofounded The Methuselah Foundation and the The Methuselah Mouse Prize.Polio and The March of Dimes.The ongoing Sabin v. Salk controversy.Why Napolean is, in spite of himself, one of the great benefactors of humanity. He offered a food preservation prize that resulted in canning.David Gobel first proposed the concept of Actuarial Escape Velocity - a point in time at which the acceleration of advances in biomedical technology surpass the rate at which humans age .And, lastly, Dave Gobel explained how normal people with normal incomes are making the Methuselah Mouse Prize possible.Other than aging, what's the deadliest disease in the world? You might be surprised.

Affordable Health Care: Here Is What Will REALLY Work Jan 31, 2017

Hosts Phil Bowermaster and Stephen Gordon explore the role technology may play in making healthcare more abundant and affordable. Scientists May Have Found A Way To Regenerate Our Teeth The King’s College researchers put the enzyme inhibitoron biodegradable collagen sponges, stuck them in subjects’ teeth where cavities had formed and found they healed up without the need for any drilling or filling. Machine Vision Helps Spot New Drug Treatments First FDA Approval For Clinical Cloud-Based Deep Learning In Healthcare The first FDA approval for a machine learning application to be used in a clinical setting is a big step forward for AI and machine learning in healthcare and industry as a whole. Two Infants Treated with Universal Immune Cells Have Their Cancer Vanish "What Happens When Doctors Only Take Cash"? Everybody, Especially Patients, Wins The lucrative field of medicine gets demystified, prices go down, services go up, and everybody except insurance companies come out ahead. Join us! WT 260-569

The Future: Scary Cool, Scary Funny, or Just Plain Scary? Jan 28, 2017

Hosts Phil Bowermaster and Stephen Gordon three different kinds of scary future. There are a lot of different ways to be scary. Maybe the future can be scary in all three ways at once! Scary Cool This VR device will have you actually wanting to work out. https://www.facebook.com/mashable/videos/10154844196714705/ Scary Funny That Moment When Fox News Isn’t So Faux https://www.facebook.com/beingalibertarian/videos/597418697130836/?pnref=story Just Plain Scary Something Silent But Deadly Is Killing Galaxies http://gizmodo.com/something-silent-but-deadly-is-killing-galaxies-1791328049?utm_medium=sharefromsite&utm_source=Gizmodo_facebook OTHER GEEK Timothy Gordon Update 50th anniversary of The Gorn. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arena_(Star_Trek:_The_Original_Series) Coming soon, we will be able to honor Star Trek centennials. Join Us! WT 259-568

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